Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline: (Special Edition)

1897-1904
Introduction

For those of you have followed and commented on Reds!, this will at least in part be a retread of what you've already read. However, this is the revised, definitive edition of the timeline, so there will be changes, new material and retcons abound. I hope that this will make a more complete alternate history. Unfortunately, this will be distracting me from updates for some time.

However, Illuminatus_Primus and myself are collaborating on this retcon project, with the hope of accomplishing it as quickly and thoroughly as possible, so that we can continue to surge ahead with the rest of the timeline. This will be part of the overall transition of the TL from a one-person show (with heavy reader input) to a collaborative TL. This baby has grown too big for one person to manage at any decent rate.
So, without further adieu, I present the revised Reds! TL.

The Central Committee’s Staff

The brainchild of PBS 7’s Aaron Sorkin, The Central Committee’s Staff was a weekly television drama that detailed the lives and work of the men and women in the Central Committee’s senior staff. The senior staff of the Central Committee are responsible for the unglamorous but crucially necessary work that keeps the government of the UASR functioning. Often criticized for having an overly optimistic picture of the inner functions of socialist democracy at the union level, it remained a huge critical and viewer success on public television for eight seasons before drawing to a close.

Here follows an excerpt from a novelization of the pilot episode:
So begins another day at the Committee’s Office. With all of the activity in the lobby this morning, it is easy to forget that this is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the seat of the All-Union Central Committee for the Union of American Socialist Republics, and not a busy subway terminal. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the early morning activity, a stately man, advanced in age, walks briskly past the security guards at the entrance. He moves quickly through the lobby, weaving past a busy clerical worker as he walks towards the receptionist’s office.

As he passes the receptionist terminal, the attendant says “Nice morning, Comrade McGarry.”

“We’ll take care of that in a hurry, won’t we, Mike?” the man replies with dry sarcasm.

“Yes sir,” the attendant chuckles.

The man continues his brisk pace into the inner workings of the west wing of the old Pennsylvania House. He is Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff to the Central Committee, and a personal friend of the First Secretary.

He quickly pushes through a set of white double doors, into the inner office. A woman runs past him quickly, pausing only momentarily to exclaim, “Don’t kill the messenger, Leo.”

“Oh, why the Hell not, Bonnie?” he replies as he grabs the morning’s memos. He passes quickly through the press office, making his routine morning acquaintances before calling out for his deputy. “Josh!” he yells.

Josh’s blond assistant responds instead. “Morning, Leo,” she says.

“Hey Donna,” Leo responds. “Is he in yet?”

She pauses from stirring her coffee, looking up at him coyly. “Yeah...”

“Can you get him for me?” he replies, clearly irritated.

She turns around in her seat and yells “Josh!”

“Thanks...” he sighs.

“I heard it’s broken,” she says, abruptly changing the subject.

“You heard wrong,” he replies, barely pausing from reading the memo.

“I heard it’s–”

“It’s a mild sprain,” he interrupts; “he’ll be back later today.” He begins walking out of Donna's cubicle, still skimming the memos.​
“What was the cause of the accident?”​
“What are you, from the NHS?” he sighed, “Go! Do a job or something!”​
“I'm just asking-”​
He anticipated her next question: “He was swerving to avoid a tree...”​
“What happened?” she asked.​
“He was unsuccessful.”

Leo walks though Josh’s open door just as Josh finishes his phone conversation. He asks “How many Cubans exactly have crammed themselves into these fishing boats?”

Josh responds as he busily jots down a note, “Well, it’s important to understand, Leo, that by and large, these aren’t exactly fishing boats. You hear ‘fishing boats’, you conjure an image of, well, a boat, first of all. What the Cubans are on would charitably be described as rafts. Okay? They’re making the hop from Havana to Miami in fruit baskets, basically. Let’s just be clear on that. Donna’s desk, if it could float, would look good to them right now.”

Leo begins walking out into the hallway, beckoning Josh to follow him. “I get it,” he says, “How many are there?”

“We don’t know.”

“What time exactly did they leave?”

“We don’t know.”

“Do we know when they get here?”

“No.”

Leo stops, turning towards Josh, and looks him straight in the eye. “True or false: If I were to stand on high ground in Key West with a good pair of binoculars, I’d be as informed as I am right now.”

“That’s true...”

“That’s the Foreign Office’s money well spent.”

“Well, having any sort of diplomatic relations with the exile regime occupying Cuba, we might have a better idea.”

“You look like Hell, by the way,” Leo sighs as he begins the walk toward his office.

“Yes, I do. Listen, Leo, did he say anything about it?” Josh asks timidly as he follows Leo.

“Did he say anything?!” Leo cries. “The First Secretary is pissed as hell at you Josh, and so am I.”

“I know,” he protests.

“We’ve gotta work with these people, and how the Hell do you get off strutting your--”

“I know.”

“Al Caldwell is a good man,” Leo scolds.

“Al Caldwell wasn’t there!”

“I’m saying you take everyone on the Christian Left, dump them into one big basket and label them stupid! We need these people.”

“We do not need these people...”

“Josh, if this minority government can’t get at least some votes from the Left Democrats, then we can’t govern. You know we have a whole lot better chance dealing with them than with the Socialists or the SEU.”​
Excerpts from Sean Hannity, A History of the Worker's Vanguard in America, 1876-1946, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)

The Socialist Labor Party grew respectably throughout the 1890s. Under the firm but often heavy handed leadership of the brilliant theoretician Daniel DeLeon, the party and the affiliated Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance increased it's influence within the American working class. However, there were notable setbacks in this period. German language sections of the Socialist Labor Party chafed under DeLeon's rigid ideological purity, particularly this centered around the Newyorker Volkszeitung.

The real godsend came when the relatively young leftist organization, Social Democracy of America, chaired by Eugene Debs, folded into the Socialist Labor Party in 1898.[1] The young organization had formed out of the remnants of the American Railway Union, crushed by the bourgeois state during the Pullman Strike of 1894. It's members, most often relatively new to the politics of Marxian socialism, represented a diverse spectrum of left-wing radicals, from industrial unionists like Debs, to city sewer socialists, to Owenite utopian socialists. After rejecting initial plans for co-operative colonies as unfeasible, the dialogue developed with delegates from Socialist Labor would ultimately prove fruitful.

Debs himself engaged in a lengthy series of correspondence with DeLeon. While the two never found much personal affection for each other, both recognized the importance of an alliance between the two organizations. The potential for a resurgent American Railway Union within the STLA was far too politically important for DeLeon to let slip by. Likewise, Debs immediately recognized the importance of the organization that Socialist Labor had spent the last two decades building, from the myriad working-class newspapers, to the socialist clubs and party locals.

After the whirlwind romance, the short history of Social Democracy of America concluded. On June 14, 1898, the group's National Convention dissolved itself into the Socialist Labor Party by an overwhelming vote. Dissenting delegates associated with Victor Berger of Wisconsin left the organization, and attempted to form an independent Social Democratic Party of America later that fall. The Social Democratic Party would prove short lived, out performed at the ballot box by the Socialist Labor Party throughout it's decade long history. Finally, in 1908, the two organizations made their peace, with both formally endorsing Eugene Debs' presidential bid that November. Within a few months, the dissident Social Democrats accepted the logic of socialist industrial unionism, and joined Socialist Labor.

...Eugene Debs was unequivocally the rising star within Socialist Labor. His rapid assent to the national executive of the party confirmed his status as DeLeon's foil. The two would form an uneasy diumvirate over the party until DeLeon's passing in 1911. Perhaps the first recognition of the new consensus within the party was the 1899 compromise with the opposition faction, which softened the party's perhaps overly confrontational attitude towards the then dominant labor union, the American Federation of Labor.[2] These changes reflected Debs' own power base within the party. As a union man at heart, Debs chief early contribution to the Socialist Labor Party was the growing parity of the STLA with the political organizations of the SLP. In time, the STLA would grow to become an equal partner with Socialist Labor, leaving DeLeon's shadow and growing to become an impressive political force itself.

In the 1900 presidential elections, Socialist Labor's ticket of Eugene Debs and Joseph Maloney won an respectable 165,000 votes, placing the party in 4th place on the national electoral stage.[3] While still dwarfed by the dominant parties of the day, Socialist Labor was finally beginning to reach a national audience, allowing it to fulfill it's role in developing and organizing class consciousness among American workers.

Excerpt: A selection of posts from the alternatehistory.com discussion titled “WI: McKinley Assassinated in 1901”, dated May 1, 2009.[4]

RedAmerican said:
So I was just reading through The Daily Worker today when I found a very interesting article. Apparently, when a family in Detroit, Michigan SR were digging through their attic looking at old family heirlooms, they stumbled upon the diary of their great-great-grandfather, a son of Polish immigrants named Leon Czolgosz.

Apparently, Leon’s diary had confessed that he had attempted to assassinate the President of the old United States in early September 1901. He made his first attempt on September 5th, but was unable to get close to the old imperialist. He was going to try to catch him on the next day of the exposition, but he was arrested that night by a racist Buffalo cop who had a grudge against Poles and other immigrants.

So what would our world look like today if Leon had managed to assassinate that bourgeois dog?
SeriousSam said:
Well, that’s interesting. If I remember correctly, McKinley’s VP at the time was a noted progressive... I forget his name though. Anyway, he’s not a very important person in history, so I don’t think you’ll find too much on Wiki about him.
LeninsBeard said:
I think his name was Theodore Roosevelt... *wikis*

Yup, Theodore Roosevelt. Apparently, he was a politician of some progressive sympathies at the time, and McKinley picked him for his deputy because it would help him fight off the influence of the populists and the unions. The corporatist establishment kind of marginalized him afterwards, and he faded into relative obscurity.

If McKinley were assassinated, then Roosevelt would become president, which would definitely give a boost to the progressive movement. While it might lead to short-term gains for the working classes, ultimately it might butterfly away the Red May revolution in ’33. It was the complete defeat of the progressive wings within the Republican and Democratic Parties that ultimately gave the Socialists the long-term support base they needed.

The Socialist Labor Party as a national party

National Platform

Socialist Labor Party of America

Adopted by the Eleventh National Convention, Chicago, May 1904

And approved by a general vote of the party’s membership.

*

The Socialist Labor Party of America, in convention assembled, reasserts the inalienable right of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We hold that the purpose of government is to secure to every citizen the enjoyment of this right: but taught by experience we hold furthermore that such right is illusory to the majority of the people, to wit, the working class, under the present system of economic inequality that is essentially destructive of their life, their liberty, and their happiness.

We hold that the true theory of politics is that the machinery of government must be controlled by the whole people; but again taught by experience we hold furthermore that the true theory of economics is that the means of production must likewise be owned, operated and controlled by the people in common. Man cannot exercise his right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without the ownership of the land on and the tool with which to work. Deprived of these, his life, his liberty and his fate fall into the hands of the class that owns those essentials for work and production.

We hold that the existing contradiction between the theory of democratic government and the fact of a despotic economic system—the private ownership of the natural and social opportunities—divides the people into two classes, the Capitalist Class and the Working Class; throws society into the convulsions of the Class Struggle, and perverts Government to the exclusive benefit of the Capitalist Class. Thus labor is robbed of the wealth which it alone produces, is denied the means of self-mastery by wagedom, rent, debt, interest, usury; and, by compulsory idleness in wage and debt slavery, is even deprived of the necessaries of life.

Against such a system the Socialist Labor party raises the banner of revolt, and demands the unconditional surrender of the Capitalist Class. The time is fast coming when, in the natural course of social evolution, this system, through the destructive action of its failures and crises on the one hand, and the constructive tendencies of its trusts and other capitalist combinations on the other hand, will have worked out its own downfall.

We, therefore, call upon the wage workers, toilers and yeoman of America to organize under the banner of the Socialist Labor Party into a class-conscious body, aware of its rights and determined to conquer them. And we call upon workers everywhere to join in the campaign of socialist industrial unionism in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance to stand as one against the foes of human labor. And we also call upon all other intelligent citizens to place themselves squarely upon the ground of Working Class interests, and join us in this mighty and noble work of human emancipation, so that we may put summary end to the existing barbarous class conflict by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation and distribution into the hands of the people as a collective body, and substituting the co-operative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder—a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization.

Eugene_V_Debs_1912.jpg
deleon1.jpg


The two souls of the early Socialist Labor Party, the charming Eugene Debs (left) and the brilliant but abrasive Daniel DeLeon (right)

slplogo.jpg

The Socialist Labor Party "Arm and Hammer" logo, 1876-1921

Important Events of Interest

1897:

February 10: The Western Federation of Miners breaks with the American Federation of Labor, following the sobering experience of the Leadville miner's strike.

March 4:
William McKinley is inaugurated President of the United States, succeeding Grover Cleveland.

June 1:
American mine workers begin a strike that successfully establishes the United Mine Worker's Union.

June 15:
The original American Railway Union's final conclave begins in Chicago. The new organization, Social Democracy of America, is openly courted by delegates from the Socialist Labor Party following its quick and decisive repudiation of utopian colonization schemes.[5]

September 10:
The Lattimer Massacre: A sheriff's posse kills more than 19 unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania.

October 4:
At the close of the first national meeting of Social Democracy of America, the organization ratifies a general endorsement of industrial unionism, as the first step towards an eventual union with the Socialist Labor Party.

1898


February 15: The USS Maine suffers a catastrophic explosion in Havana's harbor, sinking with nearly all hands. Though the cause of the explosion is unknown, the press, particularly those under the ownership of William Randolph Hearst, portray the sinking as a result of nefarious Spanish treachery.

April 22: The United States is at a de facto state of war with Spain, as the US Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and captures a Spanish merchant ship. A formal declaration will come three days later.

May 1: The Socialist Labor Party organizes small pro-labor, anti-war demonstrations in its strongholds in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. While there are minor clashes with the police, the demonstrations fail to gain much public attention.

June 14:
Social Democracy of America votes to dissolve the organization and its meager assets into relevant sections of the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.

July 7:
The United States annexes Hawaii.

August 12:
Hostilities end in Cuba between American and Spanish forces.

October 1:
Victor Berger and other dissidents from the now defunct Social Democracy of America hold their first convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they form the Social Democratic Party of America.

November 8:
New York state office elections: the Socialist Labor candidate Benjamin Hanford makes the parties best run yet for the office, winning close to 30,000 votes, approximately 2.5% of the total.

December 10:
The Treaty of Paris is signed, formally ending hostilities between Spain and the United States.

December 31:
By year's end, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controls 84% of the USA's oil, and most American pipelines. The age of monopoly capital has begun.

1899


January 6:
The American Railway Union is reassembled as a member of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. Eugene Debs returns as national chair during the reorganization period.

February 4:
The Phillipine-American War begins following the outbreak of hostilities in Manila.

February 14:
The US Congress authorizes the use of voting machines for federal elections, providing endless amounts of fun for future corrupt corporations and conspiracy theorists.

April 17:
Following the firing of 17 union employees at the Bunker Hill Mine in Idaho, 250 workers affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners occupy and demolish a mill at the mine. Following a major bribe by the United Mineowners, the National Guard is deployed by the Governor to Coeur d'Alene. After a violent confrontation, over 1,000 miners and their families are herded into makeshift prisons. Many will never be charged, and won't be released from the concentration camps for many months.

June 1:
The Socialist Labor Party's 10th National Convention begins in New York City, to review the integration of the Social Democrats into the party organization.

June 18:
At the close of the SLP's 10th National Convention, the leadership of Daniel DeLeon and Henry Kuhn concede to ARU president Eugene Debs' proposal for increased parity between the STLA and the party administration.

June 19:
The Newsboys Strike begins in New York. Delegates from the SLP National Convention, inspired by the impressive initiative of the all children Newsboys Union, agree to help the child laborers organize their strike.[6]

June 24:
The use of brutal strikebreaking tactics on the Newsies begins to backfire, as the Newsies begin selling working-class alternate press cleverly disguised as more famous newspapers, which bring full exposés of Hearst and Pulitzer's brutal tactics.

August 21:
The Newsboys Strike ends, with the recognition of the union, and a return to the pre Spanish-American war bundle price of 50¢. The Newsies will join the STLA by the end of the year.

October 10:
Samuel Clemens, alias Mark Twain, has a chance meeting with young, up-and-coming writer Jack London in San Francisco. Clemens, a newly baptized anti-imperialist, befriends the young Socialist Labor activist, though he remains steadfastly opposed to joining the party.

December 2:
The Battle of Tirad Pass: Filipino forces successfully commit to a delaying action against the US military, guarding the retreat of Phillipine President Emilio Aguinaldo before being wiped out.

1900


January 3:
The US Census estimates the country's population to be approximately 70 million.

January 8:
Following reports of miner revolts and lawlessness, President McKinley places the Alaskan territory under military governance.

March 5:
Two US Navy cruisers are sent to Central America to protect US interests following a dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

March 15:
The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing the United States currency on the gold standard, ending the era of bimetallism.

May 15:
The II Olympiad opens in Paris, France, as part of the Paris World Exhibition.

September 13:
Filipino resistance fighters overrun a large American column at the Battle of Pulang Lupa.

November 6:
Republican incumbent is William McKinley is re-elected President over Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The Socialist Labor Party places a distant 4th, with 165,000 votes, approximately 30,000 shy of the 3rd place Prohibition Party.

1901


March 2:
The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.

March 4:
United States President William McKinley begins his 2nd term. Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.

May 17:
The US stock market crashes.

June 12:
Cuba becomes a US protectorate.

July 5:
The Western Federation of Miners adopts a socialist platform, calling for collective, worker control of the means of production, and a program of industrial unionism to further that end.

September 6:
Leon Czolgoz is arrested in Buffalo, New York for vagrancy. President McKinley attends the day's festivities unimpeded.

November 28:
The new constitution of the State of Alabama incorporates literary tests for voters in the state.

1902


February 18:
The US Attorney-General brings a suit against the Northern Securities Company, a railroad trust, under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, in order to allay middle class outcry over the very public machinations of the schemers of the trust. In private, the President has expressed his support to the owners of the trust.

May 2:
The Coal Strike of 1902. 150,000 miners in the anthracite coal fields of western Pennsylvania from United Mine Workers of America go out on strike, demanding shorter hours, higher pay and increased control over their workplaces.

May 20:
The Republic of Cuba begins de jure independence. In reality, the country is an American puppet.

June 2:
The Coal Strike deepens as maintenance and clerical workers affiliated with the mines join the strike in solidarity.

July 10:
The Rolling Mill Mine disaster in Jonestown, Pennsylvania kills over 100 miners.

August 1:
The Coal Strike: The owners appeal to the federal government for aid in defeating the strikers, as the Pennsylvania National Guard is not sufficient to maintain security of the mines and suppress the strike. Coal stockpiles have been exhausted, and by now, the entire coal field has joined in the strike.

August 22:
President McKinley becomes the first American president to ride in an automobile today in Hartford, Connecticut.

October 15:
President McKinley deploys units of the U.S. Army to suppress the Coal Strike. Over four dozen miners are killed in the resulting battles. The strike ends by early November, with the beaten unionists agreeing to return to work in exchange for modest pay cuts and a chance to keep their jobs.

November 30:
The leadership of the United Mineworkers of America, radicalized by what they saw as the blatant betrayal of the people by the government, push for the adoption of a socialist platform at the next union national convention.

1903


February 11:
The Oxnard Strike of 1903 becomes the first time in U.S. history that a labor union is formed from members of different races.

March 4:
Turkey and Germany sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway.[7]

March 11:
The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the US the right to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, is ratified by the US Senate.

May 31:
Following Columbia's rejection of the Panama Canal Treaty, President McKinley orders the dispatch of a cruiser squadron and a contingent of Marines to support the Panamanian independence movement.

June 1:
The Butte Copper Strike begins in protest over low wages and the firing of known union leaders from the mine. The strike, jointly coordinated by the Socialist Labor Party local and the Western Federation of Miners, quickly shuts down the city's crown jewel industry.

October 6:
The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the US and Panama, giving the US exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.

October 11:
In spite of sporadic violence, the Butte Copper Strike ends with a minor victory for the miner's union. While they fail to achieve all of their goals, the union wins pay raises and and a reinstatement of fired workers.

November 23:
Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody dispatches the state militia to the town of Cripple Creek to quash a miner's strike. The Colorado Labor Wars begin.

1904


January 31:
The American Federation of Labor faces its first major reversal, the product of campaigns waged by employers for “open shops.” The employer and government back push starts with a legal injunction against United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.

March 14:
The Supreme Court delivers it's verdict in Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197: The Sherman Antitrust Act is overturned as an unconstitutional overstretch of the federal government's authority to regulate interstate commerce due to a violation of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. The 5-4 decision represents a major blow to progressives in both major parties.[8]

March 30:
The US Army Corps of Engineers begins work on the Panama Canal.

April 8:
The Entente Cordiale is signed between the UK and France

May 1:
The Socialist Labor Party's National Convention begins in Chicago. The convention nominates Eugene Debs and William Wesley Cox to run on the party's presidential ticket.

June 6:
The First Industrial Congress of the STLA opens in Chicago, to promote a national industrial union federation. At the Congress, the Western Federation of Miners amalgamates with the United Mine Workers, joining the STLA. With swelling membership, the STLA can, for the first time, stand as a legitimate alternative to the reformist AF of L.

July 1:
The III Olympiad opens in St. Louis, Missouri.

August 14:
In the final vote before the Congressional Recess, a revised antitrust bill fails 40-44. The bill, tailored to attempt to pass the Supreme Court's scrutiny following the overturn of the Sherman Antitrust Act, withers under criticism that it will still fail to pass legal muster.

November 8:
Republican presidential nominee Charles Fairbanks defeats Bourbon Democrat Alton B. Parker.

The 1904 US General election, in brief


1904 would prove to be a tumultuous year in politics. Nowhere was this more the case than in the Republican Party. Strong voices of “Progressivism” in the party, among them Vice President Theodore Roosevelt and Wisconsin Governor Robert La Follette have become deeply dissatisfied with the state of American politics. With the overturn of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the lack of will to challenge the courts in the party, and the McKinley government's overly cavalier attitude in dealing with organized labor, they feel that the federal government and the state administrations controlled by the party have done great damage to the nation, and have aggravated a growing class war.

In spite of the vulgar rhetoric thrown at them by the conservative branch of the Republican Party, the Progressive Republicans were not socialists; or even social democrats at that matter. Almost none of them are opposed to trusts on principle, and many have no love for organized labor. However, they do recognize that a state overtly colluding with the masters of capital on such a grand scale is tearing the nation apart. In their nationalism, they believe that a reconciliation between classes must be achieved; the excesses of capitalism must be restrained, the people must have some democratic voice in their governance.

However, the class collaborationists were unable to convince the rest of the Republican Party of the logic of their position in this campaign. Theodore Roosevelt, though carrying considerable popular support going into the convention, is unable to defeat the retrenched conservatives in the presidential nomination. In a heated series of ballots, the conservative Charles Fairbanks sweeps aside Roosevelt, clinching the nomination.

As his running mate, the party selects a relative moderate, William Howard Taft. In the aftermath, the Progressive Republicans themselves faced internal conflict over the proper course of action. The “Legalist Progressives,” represented among the professional politicians, civil servants, in the law schools and bar associations, argue that the movement as a whole needs to change tack and adapt to the new conditions. The majority of GOP Progressives, their intellectual center has adopted a kind of proto-corporatist philosophy. Now that breaking up trusts is no longer on the table, they argue that the government must take an increased role to manage the excesses of capitalism in a more cooperative manner. The cartels will be need to be “guided” by the federal government to produce socially desirable outcomes, regulating prices and quality, with the government serving as the umpire between organized labor and large capitalists. Heavily influenced by political scholar Woodrow Wilson's treatise Congressional Government, the Legalist Progressives believe some form of constitutional form, likely pro-parliamentary, is necessary to reduce the “politics of personality” for the health of the republic.

In contrast, the “Populist Progressives” have become embittered by what is seen as a betrayal of the principles of the Grand Old Party of Lincoln. Government of the people, by the people, they argue, cannot be achieved through rational scientific management of the opposing classes of society. Without some material leveling, a republic itself is fast becoming an impossibility. Embittered and defeated in the post-election era, many of the faction feel they have been driven into the political wilderness.

The Democrats, at their St. Louis national convention, would ultimately thrust New York Appeals Court Judge Alton B. Parker into the limelight. A man with immaculate credentials and an air of seeming incorruptibility, Parker turns the party's campaign against “the rule of individual caprice” and “the presidential office's growing abuse of authority.”

The party platform would condemn the excesses of monopolies, high government expenses, and corruption within the executive departments. In spite of some of these paeans to populism, the party's platform remained essentially Bourbon in nature, favoring the gold standard, free trade and a relatively laissez-faire government attitude. While this put the Democrats at cross-purposes with the growing Legalist Progressives faction of the GOP, some common causes were found in the reduction of corruption and the limitation of presidential authority.

In spite of great enmity between Democrats and Republicans, relations between the two parties were relatively cordial this election. Both Fairbanks and Parker were quite conservative, having very similar philosophies about the role of government in society. Without William Jennings Bryan's decidedly class war laced campaign, the 1904 campaign proved to be quite amiable. And, at the very least, both candidates equally denounced the “radical anarchistic crusade” of the growing Socialist Labor Party.

1904 would be American Railway Union chairman Eugene Debs' second run for president. A brilliant, charismatic orator capable of uniting both AF of L supporters as well as his own STLA union's constituency, Debs gave “socialist treason” a human face. Supported by SLP stalwart William Wesley Cox as his running mate, Debs would greatly expand both the SLP's membership rolls as well as it's vote share through the course of the campaign.

The 1904 campaign saw the first chink in the AF of L's armor as well. Defiance of AF of L president Samuel Gomper's explicit voluntarist philosophy became more common among union locals of AF of L affiliates, particularly among teamsters, brewers and locomotive engineers.
The SLP also expanded into the traditional rural domains of the People's Party. Shattered by collusion and subsequent betrayal by the Democratic Party, the remnants of the Populists' organizations largely signed on to support Debs' call for a broad producers' alliance between industrial labor and yeoman farmers. However, this alliance is not yet universal, and many Populist groups do not actively endorse Debs' candidacy or make alliances with industrial labor. However, with the disintegration of much of the Populists' national organization those opposed to alignment with the SLP are unable to run a Populist candidate in the election.

Presidential Results


president.png


Congressional Results

House.png


Senate.png


  1. This is the first major divergence of in the TL.
  2. IOTL, this is the major issue that ultimately caused the split in the Socialist Labor Party. That rift is patched over and the split averted ITTL.
  3. Other than the OTL's Social Democrats and SLP's vote totals combined, there is no real change in the election outcome.
  4. This was the POD from the draft version of the TL. While the divergence still occurs, it is no longer the specific POD.
  5. This is the new POD: with a slightly greater turn-out of industrial unionists at the Social Democracy of America's opening meeting, it adopts policies more in line with the SLP, and soon falls into its orbit.
  6. This is included more for my own amusement than anything. The idea of militantly socialist newspaper boys just tickles me.
  7. This event, IOTL, had dramatic consequences for great power relations. Ultimately, if completed, it would give Germany access to developing Turkish oil supplies, and ensure that the threat of a naval blockade on Germany couldn't force her capitulation. This is one of the many factors that led to the First World War.
  8. The case went 5-4 the other way IOTL, validating the break up of the Northern Securities Company. The dissent, written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and joined by Fuller, White and Peckham, held that the act was unconstitutional.
  9. Prior to OTL's 17th Amendment, the U.S. Senate elections were determined by the state government. In most states, the state legislature elected Senators. A few western states and those with stronger progressive groups had added some form of popular electoral component, though few provided for true direct elections.
 
1905-1912
1905-1912: The Rise of Socialist Labor

1905:

March 4:
Charles Fairbanks is inaugurated as President of the United States.

March 20:
The Grover Shoe Factory disaster: a massive boiler explosion occurs in a factory in Brockton, Massachusetts. The building subsequently collapses, killing 60 workers and injuring numerous others.

April 6:
The United States Supreme Court overturns a New York state law regulating the work week in the case Lochner v. New York. The sweeping decision invokes the Fourteenth Amendment's “Due Process Clause,” and results in the widespread invalidation of many state laws regulating commerce and the work week. The doctrine of “substantive due process” as enumerated by the Court gives another blow to progressives in the GOP.

May 1:
STLA deputy chairman William “Big Bill” Haywood announces the creation of two new unions within the STLA: the Yeoman Farmer's Federation, and the Agricultural Worker's Organization. As part of the declaration, Big Bill Haywood promotes the concept of the “One Big Union,” in which all members of the producing classes would organize together for a common socialist platform. The new organizations seek to organize cooperate mutual aid and revolutionary enthusiasm among small freeholders and the workers, sharecroppers and hired hands in big plantations respectively.

May 16:
The beginning of the Congressional Revolt: Progressive GOP leadership in the House steer the passage of Comprehensive Federal Trade Act. The sweeping legislation, modeled in many ways off of German Chancellor Bismarck's “practical Christianity” or “Staatssozialismus” programs, would establish a Department of Industrial Coordination, comprehensive safety regulations, as well as some limited collective bargaining standards.

June 1:
National Steel, a trust controlling almost 3/4ths of steel production in the United States, begins a major anti-union campaign against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, withdrawing recognition of the union in all of the organized mills. Though the AAISW and the AF of L attempt to organize a national campaign against this, many of the larger locals go down without a fight in the opening salvo. The Labor Wars begin.

June 4:
The Senate narrowly gives assent to the Comprehensive Federal Trade Act. However, the act is quickly and aggressively vetoed by President Fairbanks. In his veto message, Fairbanks scathingly denounces the Congressional leadership who forged the compromise act, accusing them of bowing to “syndicalist-anarchist intimidation” and “waging a bloody, unconstitutional class war by despotically depriving men of their property and liberty.”

June 30:
The Labor Wars: The International Mercantile Marine Co. begins it's own anti-union campaign, particularly against longshoremen, using the AF of L's counterreaction as a pretext to destroy affiliated unions.
July 1: Congressional leaders fire back at the President, accusing him of abuse of power, and of undermining the health of the nation by refusing any compromise over the growing inequalities of power in the country. Though attempts to override Fairbank's veto fail, it's clear that the honeymoon between Fairbanks and his party is over quite soon.

July 9:
The Labor Wars: Standard Oil joins in the attack on the AF of L. Attempts at organizing at fields and refineries owned by the trust are met with strikebreakers and scabs, resulting in the accidental death of three labor organizers in Texas.

July 20:
Governor Robert LaFollete of Wisconsin announces a major legislative deal with Victor Berger's growing Social Democratic Party. LaFollete's progressive Republicans and the Milwaukee “Sewer Socialists” agree to cooperate on a progressive agenda very close to the SDP's minimum program.

July 31:
The Women's Trade Union League votes to quit the AF of L, citing the ineffectiveness of the craft union policies, and the perverse indifference within the AF of L towards women workers and the women's suffrage movement. The predominantly socialist leadership of the League begin talks with the STLA to join the industrial union federation.

August 24:
The American Amalgamated Coal Company forms. The new trust is an offshoot of the National Steel trust, formed as a part of a vertical integration plan by the trust's leadership. The new trust acquires the Consolidation Coal Company, the Pennsylvania Coal Company, two of the largest coal mining companies in the United States.

September 7:
The American Telephone & Telegraph Company joins the Labor Wars, successfully crushing small union strikes within it's branches.

September 20:
Samuel Clemens, alias Mark Twain, publishes his political satire, What's Mine is Mine, skewering the unashamedly servile press coverage of, among other things, the 1902 Anthracite Coal Strike. Even the great humorist is not immune to charges of being a “socialist-anarchist bombthrower.”

October 1:
The Labor Wars: the Anaconda Copper Company, in Butte, Montana, begins a union-busting campaign at its flagship copper mines. The United Mineworkers responds by voting for a general strike against the Anaconda Company and it's affiliates.

October 8:
Congressional GOP leadership enter into a further row with President Fairbanks, over corruption within the executive departments. The “Imperial President” widely loses favor with the public over apparently rampant connections to major trusts, especially the much reviled Northern Securities Company.

November 1:
One month into the Copper General Strike, their seems to be very little hope for a peaceful resolution. The Governor of Montana, Democrat Joseph K. Toole, is pressured into mobilizing the National Guard to “restore order” in Butte, Anaconda, and the surrounding counties. This move meets wide resistance from Farmer-Labor groups, and ends up pushing the remnants of Montana People's Party organizations into the Socialist Labor Party, which has played a significant role in organizing the strike.

November 12:
In one of the last votes of the year, the House of Representatives votes 254-99 to endorse the Congressional Government Amendment. The Amendment, authored by Democratic Minority Whip Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, will be debated in the Senate next. The Amendment would significantly strip the powers of the presidency and establish a parliamentary governmental structure, with the Cabinet responsible to the House of Representatives.

1906


January 16:
The President's standoff with the legislative branch continues in the new year. Fairbanks' barbed State of the Union address reveals an executive un-intimidated by the Congress' threatened rebuke. He appears confident that the Republican Party political machines in the states will side with the executive instead of the Congress in the upcoming Constitutional Amendment battle.

February 10:
The HMS Dreadnought is launched, revolutionizing naval warfare. An impending naval arms race between the UK and the German Reich is on the horizon, with the lesser naval powers of France, Italy and the US expected to take part to some degree.

February 14:
An attack by the Montana National Guard against strikers in Butte is repulsed by an armed Farmer-Labor “Vigilance Committee.” Before the Montana front of the Labor Wars can further escalate, the Governor begins backing down, as he continues to loose support among the farmer constituencies that helped bring him into office. He urges the Board of Directors for the Anaconda Copper Company to enter the bargaining table with the strikers. Meanwhile, American Railway Union workers refuse to load shipments to and from the Anaconda Company, in solidarity with the UMW.

February 28:
Upton Sinclair publishes his landmark novel, The Jungle. Though the socialist tract also spreads considerable concern about the health and safety of the meatpacking industry, the Supreme Court's case law precedent, and the President's threatened veto stymie attempts to make headway on regulation.

March 1:
National leaders of the STLA and the United Mineworkers, including Eugene Debs and “Big Bill” Haywood, travel to Butte to begin a collective bargaining agreement with the Anaconda Company.

March 15:
The US Senate votes 60-30 in favor of the Congressional Government Amendment, narrowly meeting the two-thirds constitutional requirement. The Amendment will now head to the states for ratification

March 17:
The six-month long Copper General strike reaches an end, with a negotiated settlement. The UMW is tacitly recognized, and a bare-bones collective bargaining agreement is instituted, giving the union a measure of control over dismissal of members from the mines. The mineworkers also win small pay raises and shorter hours.

April 6:
The Congress and the President again enter into a row, this time over naval armament spending. The President finds himself reluctant to authorize the necessary spending increases to pay for a navy necessary to project America's status as an emerging world power.

April 18:
The Populist Party's Emergency National Convention begins. At stake is the future of the organization and it's mission of a broad, producing class reform government. The convention of the ailing organization is divided between two hostile camps. The “Left Populists,” consisting of Farmer-Labor and rural worker groups, endorse socialism and industrial unionism, and wish to enter the Socialist Labor Party led worker's movement. The “Right Populists” wish to maintain electoral independence, and stay steadfastly opposed to collaboration with other groups. At the end of the day, the “Left Populists” carry the day, and begin the process of affiliation with the SLP. “Right Populist” sections leave the organization, and vow to carry on the true Populist spirit in a new organization.

May 1:
SLP activist and novelist Jack London begins serializing his novel White Fang in The Outing Magazine.
May 8: National Steel purchases it's largest competitor, Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Renamed the United States Steel Corporation,1 the J.P. Morgan backed steel trust controls nearly 3/4ths of American steel production. The corporation's aggressive expansion is paved by innovation, combined with the nullification of American anti-trust statutes.

June 1:
With the near total eradication of the Amalgamated Iron Workers' union, the STLA forms a Steelworkers' Organizing Committee, to begin making cautious inroads into forming a steelworker's industrial union. Other proposals for industrial oil workers' and telephone workers are considered as well, but rejected in the interim to concentrate the STLA's resources on the large steel industry.

June 18:
House Speaker Joseph Cannon (R-IL) meets with a delegation of Democratic Party leaders, including several Southern state governors, the Minority Leader John Sharp Williams (D-MS) and Minority Whip Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ), to discuss a compromise agreement on the Congressional Government Amendment. The eventual agreement balances populist issues with trusts, a key Democratic constituency and something looked down upon even by Bourbon Democrat hardliners, as well as Democratic isolationism. In exchange for Southern state support for the amendment, a Cannon led Congressional government will push for means to regulate and control trusts and improve wages for workers, hoping to shore up dwindling Democratic support among the industrial working class.

July 11:
Seven Southern states ratify the Congressional Government Amendment, intensifying the conflict between the President and the Congress. However, hopes of getting the Amendment ratified before the 1906 election seem wildly optimistic.

August 1:
President Fairbanks deploys the US Army to Cuba, to contain a Cuban rebellion that the puppet government has been incapable of putting down. The intervention quashes moderate Cuban leaders hopes of slow moves to independence.

August 14:
With the mid-term elections looming on the horizon, the GOP heavyweights in the lock horns with one another over the future of the party. While the growing consensus is towards Legalist Progressivism, the balancing the wishes of the electorate with the powerful business constituency in the Republican Party is difficult. While corporate interests can back the governmental reform of the Congressional Government Amendment, other proposals, such as an “anti-trust” amendment to the Constitution are unable to gain traction.

September 1:
An electoral fusion alliance is negotiated in Wisconsin, with a number of Progressive Republicans running on Victor Berger's Social Democratic Party ticket as well.

October 11:
The Steelworkers' Organizing Committee begins the first part of its unionization push, starting in the smaller foundries of the Pennsylvania based Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

November 6:
Midterm elections in the United States: The Republican Party gains an increased majority in both the House and the Senate. The Social Democrats and the Socialist Labor Party make their first entry into the US House of Representatives, as well as significant gains in state legislatures across the country.(2)

December 2:
After failing to obtain court injunctions or state aid against Steelworkers' Organizing Committee actions at a number of plants, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation reluctantly recognizes the union. Bethlehem Steel stock prices fall, and orders for steel steadily shift to its monolithic competitor, US Steel.

Congressional Results, 1906

House of Representatives_______Seats________Change

Republican Party
_______________260__________+9

Democratic Party_______________123__________-12

Social Democratic Party_________2____________+2
Socialist Labor Party____________1____________+1

U.S. Senate_____________________Seats________Change

Republican Party________________58___________0

Democratic Party
________________30__________-2

Social Democratic Party*_________2___________2

* SDP Senators elected on fusion tickets with state Progressive Republican groups in Wisconsin and Washington

1907


January 1:
Daniel J. Tobin becomes president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

February 11:
Progressive Republican controlled states begin ratifying the Congressional Government Amendment, with Wisconsin leading the charge.

February 28:
The American Federation of Labor receives a major blow, as the rail based craft unions vote to leave the Federation, citing its inability to challenge the declining benefits for union members. The effectiveness of the industrial American Railway Union's actions lead many members, and the entire Brotherhoods of Locomotive Engineers and Railroad Signalmen, to decide to join the ARU.

March 4:
With the opening of the new Congressional term, freshman Congressman Victor Berger (SD-WI) delivers a scathing criticism of President Fairbank's failed leadership of the nation, reaching across the aisle to Progressive Republicans to curb the excesses of plutocracy in the US.

March 12:
The Autoworker's Organizing Committee is founded in Detroit, Michigan, by delegates of the STLA and workers from the Ford Motor Company. Almost immediately, Henry Ford attempts to destroy the fledgling union. The tide begins to turn in the Labor Wars.

March 30:
The Agriculture Worker' Organization reaches a membership of almost 100,000 workers.

April 4:
Republican politician and figure of the Progressive movement Theodore Roosevelt delivers a major speech at an organization of Northeastern Republicans. Roosevelt criticizes the failed hardline policies of the GOP center, represented by the current president, charging them with ignoring the growing class war in the country.

April 18:
The battleship USS Kansas (BB-21) is commissioned, the first of the American dreadnought type all-big gun battleships.

June 6:
The Lumber Workers' Industrial Union organizes in the Pacific Northwest and South from a coalition of smaller local unions and craft union locals representing workers in the lumber industry. The Lumber Strike begins almost immediately.

July 8:
The ailing AF of L begins a National Conference, with the hopes of finding a solution to its plummeting membership and distressed financial situation. While Gompers puts on a brave front, and his Voluntarist faction carries the day, behind closed doors it is grimmer than many had feared. The AF of L strike fund is nearly depleted, and a number of affiliates are on the verge of total bankruptcy.

August 1:
The Aeronautical Division is established within the US Army Signal Corps.

August 14:
The Seventh Congress of the Second International begins in Stuttgart, Germany. The Congress opens with the welcoming of a large slate of delegates from the fast growing Socialist Labor Party of America.

August 31:
Count Alexander Izvolsky and Sir Arthur Nicolson sign the St. Petersburg Convention, which results in the establishment of the Triple Entente.

September 6:
The Anaconda Copper Company, joined by a group of investors led by John D. Rockefeller, purchase a majority stake in the United Copper Company. The new cartel, which will become the US Copper Corporation, will soon control almost three-fourths of the American copper market.

November 16:
The Oklahoma and Indian Territories are combined, entering the union as the 46th State.

December 6:
Monongah Mining Disaster: A coal mine explosion kills 362 workers in Monongah, West Virginia.

December 11:
The Great White Fleet departs from Hampton Roads, Virginia, as a display of growing American military might.

December 19:
An explosion in a coal mine in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania kills 239. The second major coal mining disaster in a month, the central committee of the United Mineworkers vote to begin broad strike in the coal mining industry to protest the lack of safety precautions. This time the unionists enter the battle from a position of strength, with major public sympathy on their side.

1908


January 1:
The first ball drops in Times Square on New Year's Day, beginning a long tradition.

January 6:
The Amalgamated Coal Company reaches an agreement with the United Mineworkers, beginning a serious investigation by a joint company-union task force on mine safety, and agreeing to the Mineworker's wage increase demands. This successful coup ensures that Amalgamated Coal will be the only sure supply of coal this winter.

January 12:
The American Railway Union and the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee begin sympathy actions to support the United Mineworkers. ARU organized locomotives and railyards refuse to deliver coal from mines owned by companies still under strike, and Steelworkers strike at factories that buy coal from said mines.

February 1:
The Lumber Strike ends, a major success for the Lumber Workers. Sustained by graft, lumber camp occupation, and generous donations from other working-class organizations, the Lumber Workers gain total recognition by much of the industry.

February 12:
Following rumors that the West Virginia Governor will deploy the National Guard to end the strike, coal miners arm themselves and begin an occupation of many of the rural coal pits. This escalation leads to the federal mobilization of the National Guard, and of the US Army by the president, to suppress the strike.

February 15:
Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon openly defies the President's command authority of the military, invoking the Posse Comitatus Act. A Congressional Joint-Resolution, condemning the president's violation of the Act (which prohibits the use of the military or National Guard under federal control for law enforcement within the borders of the US except when authorized by the Congress or the Constitution), and subtly threatening impeachment should he continue, passes both houses of Congress by a 2/3rds majority, gaining the support of nearly the entire Democratic Caucus as well as sufficient factions of the Republican Party.

March 1:
Following the President's retreat, and the refusal of state governors to intervene on behalf of mine-owners, shares of affected companies, and notably, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, plummet at the New York Stock Exchange.

March 15:
Negotiations begin to end the largest strike in American history. Congressional leaders agree to mediate the negotiations between STLA leaders and the coal industry.

April 1:
US Steel begins a hostile takeover of the ailing Bethlehem Steel Corporation, cornering the plummeting stock of the corporation. If the deal is allowed to be completed, US Steel will hold a near total monopoly on the US Steel industry. Public outcry against the move is strong but impotent.

April 5:
The Coal Strike ends, following a successful settlement. The massively press coverage of the strike make the United Mineworkers and the STLA's victory a virtual propaganda coup. The Labor Wars effectively end.

April 27:
The IV Olympiad begins in London, England.

May 26:
At Masjid-al-Salaman in Southwestern Persia, the first major oil discovery in the Middle-East is made. The rights are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom, following a cryptic telegram delivered to the Home Office: “See Psalm 104, Verse 15, Line 3”(3)

June 16:
The Republican National Convention begins in Chicago, Illinois. Following a series of ballots, the Legalist Progressive aligned delegates succeed in their coup, nominating William Howard Taft for President.

June 30:
The Tunguska Event occurs in Siberia.

July 1:
The Socialist Labor Party National Convention begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Party ratifies a new platform, and endorses a large slate of representatives, some running on fusion tickets. The new platform specifies a minimum and maximum programme for the first time.

July 3:
The Young Turk Revolution begins in the Ottoman Empire.

July 18:
As the election draws near, delegates of the SDP and the SLP meet to finalize an electoral cooperation agreement. Congressional candidates for both parties will not run against each other, with hopes of maximizing the left vote, and paving a road to reconciliation between the two groups.

August 12:
The United Teamsters of America form a successful “dual-union”, effectively breaking the International Brotherhood of Teamsters craft-union policies, and IBT president Daniel J. Tobin's stranglehold on the organization.

September 16:
William C. Durant founds the predecessor to the General Motors Corporation.

September 25:
The first Ford Model T is produced.

October 6:
The Bosnia Crisis begins as the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexes Bosnia-Herznegovina.

October 15:
The International Union of Brewery Workmen of America votes to leave the AF of L and join the STLA.

November 3:
The 1908 US General Election. William Howard Taft is elected President of the United States, but the Republican Party faces a major defeat in Congressional elections as well as control of State Legislatures.

December 2:
Child Emperor Pu-Yi ascends to the Chinese throne at the age of two.

General election, 1908


Presidential Results


Presidential candidate
_____Party______________Popular Vote_____Percentage______Electoral Count

William H. Taft_____________Republican Party______6,032,171_______42.59%________321

Alton B. Parker_____________Democratic Party_____4,987,123________35.21%________140

Eugene Debs_______________Socialist Labor Party___1,632,400__________11.52%________0

William Jennings Bryan______Populist Democratic___1,512,011_____10.68%________0

Congressional Results

House of Representatives_______Seats________Change

Republican Party
_______________206__________-54

Democratic Party_______________165__________+37
Socialist Labor Party*___________20___________+17

U.S. Senate_____________________Seats________Change

Republican Party________________50___________-8

Democratic Party
________________40__________+10

Socialist Labor Party_____________2___________0

* Socialist Labor Party and Social Democratic Party joint candidates

1909

January 1:
Drilling begins on the Lakeview Gusher

January 5:
Columbia recognizes the “independence” of Panama.

February 4:
The long string of AF of L defections and takeovers continue, with the syndicalist takeover of the mostly immigrant Journeyman International Barber's Union. The new Revolutionary Barbers' International federates with the STLA.

February 22:
The Great White Fleet returns to Hampton Roads, Virginia.

March 4:
William Howard Taft succeeds Charles Fairbanks as President of the United States.

March 31:
Serbia accepts Austro-Hungarian control of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

April 1:
The Bricklayers', Masons and Plasterers' International Union adopts an industrial unionist platform, beginning a power struggle in the AF of L between Gomper's Voluntarists and the still AF of L loyalist Bricklayers,

April 19:
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is founded.

May 6:
The US Senate ratifies a treaty allowing co-recognition of corporations between the US and the Russian Empire.

May 14:
Following the completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, the parent company is acquired by the Northern Securities Company, granting the new Enterprise Railroad Corporation a near monopoly on transcontinental travel in the north of the country.

June 16:
President William Howard Taft recomends to Congress to vote to propose an amendment to the US Constitution to permit the federal government to levy an income tax upon persons and corporations, as well as clarify the meaning of the commerce clause.

July 13:
STLA union workers, affiliated with the ARU, begin a walk out at the Pressed Steel Car Company in Pennsylvania. Nearly three quarters of the six thousand employees of the company, which mass produces rail cars via assembly line methods, join the strike action. An attack by Pinkertons as well as the Pennsylvania State Police are unable to bring an early resolution to the strike.

July 18:
With 36 states ratifying the Congressional Government Amendment, the Sixteenth Amendment becomes the supreme law of the land. Democratic Party Majority Leader Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey successfully forms a coalition government with Republican Progressives and the Social Democrats.(5)

July 30:
President Taft welcomes the new First Secretary Woodrow Wilson to the White House, where the two hammer out a political agreement. The first “cohabitation” government appears to be a success, as talks are cordial, and a fair division of powers is achieved. The President will cede initiative in domestic affairs to the Cabinet, while the Cabinet assures the President's initiative in foreign and judicial affairs.

August 2:
The US Army Signal Corps purchases its first airplane.

August 8:
With Gompers' demands left unheeded, the AF of L votes to expel the Bricklayers from the Federation. Stung by this bitter betrayal, the Bricklayers naturally drift into the STLA.

August 14:
First Secretary Wilson's coalition government obtains its first legislative victory, steering the passage of the Mann-Elkins Act, expanding the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to include communications, and also strengthening regulation of railroads, mines and the steel industry.

September 12:
Emiliano Zapata begins his revolutionary career, when the city leaders of San Miguel Anenecuilco select him to recover lands owned by the village.

September 18:
The Pressed Steel Car Strike ends, with the strikers winning company recognition of the Industrial Assemblers' Union, as well as significant wage increases.

September 20:
The Union of South Africa is created, following legislation in the British parliament.

October 4:
The Industrial Assemblers' Union begins its first national congress. The congress is attended by representatives of the Autoworkers' Union, the Boot and Shoeworkers' Union, the Boilmakers and Iron Shipbuilders' Union, the Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Ironworkers' Union, the Iron, Tin and Steel Workers', and the International Association of Machinists. Attending unions are immediately suspended from the AF of L.

November 11:
The US Navy founds a navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

December 17:
King Albert I of Belgium succeeds his uncle, Leopold II, to the throne.

1910


January 17:
By voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approves a bill calling for statehood for the territories of Arizona and New Mexico.

February 4:
The Boy Scouts of America youth organization is incorporated.

February 7:
France joins the naval arms race, with the passage of a bill calling for the construction of 28 battleships and 94 submarines over a 10 year period.

March 8:
A battle begins for control of the Carpenters' Union. One of the key organizations of the AF of L, it's large membership constitutes the majority of current deflated AF of L membership. Gompers' allies squash proposals to build a political program, or open the union up to racial minorities. “Outside agitators” linked with the STLA begin agitating for the union to quit the AF of L and join the STLA.

April 18:
The White-Slavery Act, also known as the Mann Act, passes with strong majorities in the House and Senate.

May 11:
The US Congress authorizes the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines.

June 1:
The American Civil Service Act of 1910 is steered through the House by First Secretary Wilson. The popular bill, aimed at improving efficiency and fighting corruption in the Executive Departments, greatly expands the existing Civil Service system to large numbers of positions within the government. The Act also establishes a temporary commission to weed out corrupt federal employees within the government.

July 8:
Social Democratic/Socialist Labor members of Wilson's reform coalition meet with the First Secretary today to discuss collective bargaining and safety standards. With the passage of the Commerce Amendment a near foregone conclusion at this point, Wilson confidently assures progress on mediating between capital and labor.

August 22:
The Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty is signed.

August 28:
The Eighth International Congress of the Second International begins in the socialist-governed city of Copenhagen, to considerable fanfare. With over a thousand delegates from thirty-three countries, the Congress strengthens previous commitments against war, and entertains the American delegations draft proposals for a socialist trade union international, modeled off the American Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.

October 7:
The Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution is ratified.

October 18:
First Secretary Wilson introduces three bills on the floor of the House of Representatives. The first would establish a small progressive income tax to generate revenue for the federal government. The second would establish a new federal department, the Department of Industrial Coordination, to serve as the Cabinet's oversight over the regulatory arms of government and to manage the increasingly tense conflict between labor and capital. The third would establish a central bank to regulate the American money supply and bring stability to the country's chaotic financial institutions.

November 8:
Midterm Senate elections begin. By the time the arcane process is done, the Democrats pick up five Senate seats, and the Socialist Labor Party picks up one, bringing the totals in the Senate to 45 Democrats, 44 Republicans, and 3 Socialist Laborites.

November 20:
The Mexican Revolution of 1910 begins, as Francisco I. Madero declares the elections of 1910 are null and void, calling for an armed revolution against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

December 12:
President Taft signs First Secretary Wilson's “Progressive Slate” into law, following the lightning passage of the three bills. As per the previous agreement with the First Secretary, Taft submits his new Cabinet appointments to the House of Representatives: James R. Mann (R-IL) as Secretary for Industrial Coordination, and Victor Berger (SD-WI) for Secretary of Labor.

1911


January 31:
At a special congress of the Social Democratic Party, the party votes to formally weld the party-apparatus to that of the larger Socialist Labor Party. The merger is expected to be confirmed by an early Summer special conference of the SLP.

March 4:
Congress returns from recess to face a growing crisis of confidence among the American people over the role of big business in society. The events of the year will not do much to help that confidence.

March 8:
The first installment of Frederick Taylor's monograph, The Principles of Scientific Management, appears in The American Magazine. The three month run gives a tremendous boost to the growing proto-corporatist movement among American Progressives.

March 29:
The M1911 .45 caliber pistol is adopted by the United States Army.

May 1:
The publicly owned central bank of the United States, the Bank of the Republic, begins formal operation today, with the appointment of economist Irving Fisher as Chairman of the Bank of the Republic.

May 15:
Standard Oil achieves monopoly status in the oil industry, with greater than 99 percent control of the American domestic oil market. This news is met with great apprehension throughout much of the country. Two massive monopolies are now entrenched in the US market, and have been hostile to both organized labor as well as progressive government attempts to regulate them.

May 31:
The RMS Titanic is launched. As the White Star Line's new flagship, she promises to be the most luxurious ocean liner in the world.

June 14:
A national seamen's strike begins in Britain.

June 20:
The National Executive of the SLP authorizes the mass enrollment of the Social Democratic Party into the SLP. The move is unpopular with Daniel DeLeon, but Eugene Debs remains hopeful that the reformist wing can be won over to a revolutionary position.

July 1:
The creation of a special committee to investigate the Monopoly Capital situation is announced by First Secretary Wilson. A joint creature of the Cabinet and the Commerce Committee, the commitee's chairman, James Mann, makes broad sweeping subpoenas to begin its task.

August 8:
Public 62-6 sets the number of representatives in the House of Representatives at 435.

August 21:
SLP National Secretary Daniel DeLeon passes away of a sudden stroke in the early hours of the morning. The powerful leader and brilliant Marxist theoretician will be sorely missed in the SLP. His funeral is attended by the First Secretary and the Speaker of the House. Future historians will remember DeLeon's funeral as the last of the halcyon days of broad progressive reform.

September 8:
Infighting begins in Wilson's coalition government over the preliminary reports of Mann's special committee. While the findings of capital concentration and it's potentially dangerous effects on the health of the Republic, the preliminary report's cautiously pro-capital policy recommendations draw fire from the left-wing members of the coalition.

October 10:
The Wuchang Uprising starts the Xinhai Revolution.

October 18:
Revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen overthrow China's Qing Dynasty, founding a provisional government that would become the Republic of China.

November 14:
Just before the end year recess, a preliminary policy agreement is reached by the Wilson Cabinet. A new antitrust law, narrowly tailored under the new Seventeenth Amendment and the Court's interpretation of the takings clause from the case of Northern Securities Co. v. US, the new act would chiefly prevent vertical integration and collusions between trusts from different industries. The bill is chiefly aimed at separating the various parts of the J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller empires.

December 8:
The Carpenter's Union votes to quit the AF of L, and join the STLA, basically signally the death knell of the American Federation of Labor as a viable union federation.

December 31:
Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China

1912


January 5:
The Russial Social Democratic Labour Party splits into two separate organizations along the Bolshevik/Menshevik divide.

January 18:
Forty thousand workers walk out of textile mills in Lawrence, Massachussetts, beginning the Bread and Roses strike.

February 14:
The now bankrupt American Federation of Labor capitulates to the industrial unionist STLA. The AF of L President Samuel Gompers accepts STLA President Big Bill Haywood's offer for a “general Congress of American labor” to handle the organizational task for merging the two union federations.

March 14:
The Bread and Roses strike ends, with the combined forces of the craft-union United Textile Workers and the mostly woman, immigrant Revolutionary Textile Workers winning a forty hour work week, better pay, and a collective bargaining agreement.

April 17:
The RMS Titanic arrives in New York harbor, having bested the White Star Line's previous Atlantic crossing record. The White Star Line flagship's smashing success is a major coup for the International Mercantile Marine Company, the transnational cartel that holds a near monopoly on trans-Atlantic shipping.

May 1:
The streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York are paralyzed by May Day demonstrations organized by the Socialist Labor Party. The march this year is unique, making women's suffrage a center issue alongside traditional labor issues.

May 5:
The V Olympiad begins in Stockholm, Sweden. It is the first of the Olympic Games to have participants from all five continents.

May 16:
Gomper's and Haywood's “general Congress of American labor” meets in Chicago. The Congress, attended by representatives of every major trade union in America, would lead to the merger of the AF of L and the STLA into a new trade union federation, the International Workers' Solidarity Union. The new union would serve as a prototype for the international union federation endorsed by American delegates to the Second International.

June 6:
The Socialist Labor Party National Convention begins in Toledo, Ohio. The motley convention, representing a broad spectrum from Western miner syndicalists and prarie socialist yeoman farmers, to dissident intellectual progressives from the Republican Party, ratifies what would later be known as the Toledo Programme, endorsing industrial unionism, revolutionary socialism, and fierce anti-imperialism.

June 18:
The Republican Party renominates William Howard Taft for the presidency, almost completely unopposed.

June 25:
The Democratic Party nominates William Jennings Bryan for President, healing the potential split between his Populist Democratic insurgents and the rest of the party apparatus.

July 3:
The Socialist Labor Party and the International Workers' Solidarity Union ratify a joint-constitution, welding the two organizations together while preserving union independence from the party.

August 6:
Following pay-cuts dictated by the US Steel Corporation's central management, the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee votes to organize a walkout, to both win union recognition and push back the declining wages among steelworkers.

August 21:
Membership in the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee grows substantially, as the strike spreads like wildfire. The largest corporation in America is nearly paralyzed by striking workers. The only thing preventing a direct armed confrontation between the strikers and US Steel's allies in state governments and private mercenary organizations is the direct intervention by Wilson's coalition government to prevent such a catastrophe.

October 7:
The Eighteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote for women, and supporting the principal of electoral fusion and free association, is ratified, though not quickly enough to come into full effect for the general election less than a month away.

November 5:
William Howard Taft is narrowly re-elected President, while the Republican Party makes considerable gains in the House of Representatives. Negotiations soon begin between House Speaker Cannon and the incumbent First Secretary Wilson over whether the current cross-party coalition government will persist.

November 7:
US Steel settles with the steelworkers, recognizing the organization and rolling back the paycuts. However, the union was unable to win pay increases or shorter hours.

November 24:
An extraordinary congress of the Second International is convened in Basel to address the rapidly escalating tensions between Austrians and Serbs and the growing fear that a general European war was on the horizon. The congress reiterates the International's “war on war”, and called on all member parties to resist national war movements in their countries.

General election, 1912


The defection of large sectors of the Republican Party to support Woodrow Wilson's trans-party reform coalition following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment would prove to be a wake up call for the party establishment. In spite of infighting in the coalition, Wilson governed effectively, and enjoyed broad support amongst the electorate, regardless of party affiliation. Neither could the stalwarts of the party ignore the growing class-war issue.

With the 1912 Republican Convention, these divisions were healed. The conservative, pro-business faction moved to the center to placate dissident Republicans. For the first time, the growing concentration of capital, and the formation of large monopoly trusts in steel, oil, transatlantic trade, transcontinental railroad, and even sugar, was addressed in a sober manner.

To the chagrin of the Populist Progressives, the Republicans would not go any further than mediating the class war, and regulating away its excesses through the application of a corporatist economic doctrine. The tacit endorsement of Legalist Progressivism by the Convention's Platform Committee was made explicit by Taft's renomination acceptance speech. Thus, in the 1912 election, two ostensibly “Progressive” political parties would battle for control of the national political economy. Unfortunately for Wilson's Democrats, the existence of a growing mass-based socialist party undermined the very point of Democratic Progressivism in electoral politics. The decline of the Northern working-class vote for the Democratic Party would prove fatal to the party's prospects as a national political party. Only thanks to the socialists sapping away large portions of formerly Republican voting electorates was the party able to mount an effective national campaign in 1912.

For the Socialist Labor Party, 1912 seemed like the entrance into the big leagues. The growth of the party showed no signs of stopping or even slowing, and it seemed it would soon take power, perhaps by the end of the decade. So long as the party kept growing, the unresolved issues of reform vs. revolution could be put off for a later date. But even with the total capture of the formerly Democratic aligned northern working-class vote, and a significant further influx of Republican defectors, it was simply not likely that the party could crack the powerful Republican ideological dominance in many of the Northern states.

Regardless, the 1912 election is a particularly interesting one for historians, due to how close the electoral count ultimately was. The shift of a few thousands votes in just one of the several Midwest industrial states, such as Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio, would have given the state's entire elector slate to the Democrats, and put William Jennings Bryan in the White House. In spite of almost a twenty-percent lead over Bryan, Taft was very nearly defeated in the election.

Presidential Results

Presidential candidate
_____Party______________Popular Vote_____Percentage______Electoral Count

William H. Taft_____________Republican Party______6,801,565_______48.45%________277

Alton B. Parker_____________Democratic Party_____4,122,721________29.37%________254

Eugene Debs_______________Socialist Labor Party___3,115,015__________22.19%________0

Congressional Results

House of Representatives_______Seats________Change

Republican Party
_______________235__________+29

Democratic Party_______________160__________-5
Socialist Labor Party*___________40___________+20

U.S. Senate_____________________Seats________Change

Republican Party________________49___________+5

Democratic Party
________________44__________-1

Socialist Labor Party_____________3___________0

Amendments to the US Constitution, 1905-1913

Sixteenth Amendment (Ratified July 18th, 1909)

§ One:
The executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States; and in the Cabinet of the United States, consisting of the various Secretaries in charge of the executive departments, the First Secretary, and such other officers of the House of Representatives as determined by law.
The First Secretary and Secretaries of the Cabinet shall be elected by the House of Representatives without debate on the proposal of the President. The person who receives the majority vote of the House of Representatives shall be appointed by the President.
Members of the Cabinet may serve concurrently as members of the House of Representatives.

§ Two: The House of Representatives may express its lack of confidence in the Cabinet only by electing successors by majority vote of the members and requesting the President to dismiss the Cabinet. The President must comply with this request and appoint the successors.
If a motion of the First Secretary for a vote of confidence is not supported by a majority of members of the House of Representatives, the President may dissolve the House of Representatives, and order new elections to occur within twenty one days of dissolution.

§ Three: Save the following provisions, the House of Representatives shall be elected for four years. Its term shall end when a new House convenes. New elections shall be held no sooner than forty-six months and no later than forty-eight months after the electoral term begins. If the House be dissolved, new elections shall be held within sixty days.
The House of Representatives shall convene no later than thirty days following election.

Seventeenth Amendment (Ratified October 7th, 1910)


§ One:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

§
Two: The Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce within the United States; specifically with respect to the fair standards of safe labor, the regulation of the operations of trusts, corporations, cartels, trade unions and other such commercial combinations.

§ Three:
The Congress shall have the power to establish a national bank.

Eighteenth Amendment (Ratified October 7th, 1912)


§ One:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

§ Two:
The right of citizens to form associations within and between political parties shall not be infringed. Neither the United States, nor any State, shall prohibit electoral fusion as a matter of free association in all elections.

§
Three: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Excerpt
from The Socialist Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Through Both Revolutions, by Louis Hartz (Harcourt: Brace Publishers, 1955)(6)

...The socialist tradition’s triumph among the American proletariat was not, as it might appear, the Red May Revolution of 1933. Such a victory, bold and obvious as it is, would be entirely impossible without a far more subtle but ultimately more earth-shattering development. That small but vital turning point can be found with the eclipse of Samuel Gompers and the AF of L, and the rise of “Big Bill” Haywood and Solidarity.

1912 would prove to be a year of revolutionary importance in the American socialist movement. February would bring Gompers’ capitulation, and the final abandonment of class-collaborationist “craft-union” strategies in American organized labor. The commitment to revolutionary industrial unionism among the American proletariat would serve to provide the organizational bedrock upon which the class could be mobilized to seize political power. For now, that was still largely confined within the norms of Fabian Socialism, but important deviations from the traditional Bernstein-Kautskyian line of the Second International were also embraced by the Socialist Labor Party.

As the chief intellectual theorist of the early Socialist Labor Party, Daniel DeLeon build the fundamental theoretical doctrine that would serve to distinguish the American movement from the parallel movements across Europe. For all of their zeal and scholarship, the European “Marxist” intellectuals of that era were almost without exception a sort of liberal reformer dressed in worker's clothing. The leaders of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) led the international workers' movement due to their mass organization and, on paper, powerful influence withing the German Reich. However, the liberal whiggery of Erfurt era SPD confined the influence of the German working class to the narrow avenues provided by the bourgeois state. The left-wing dissidents of the SPD such as Luxemburg notwithstanding, the whole of the party was as bourgeois to the core as any of the other German parties.
The German reformists conceived of the class-struggle within the narrow confines of the bourgeois halls of government. In doing so, they neglected the very clear understanding that Marx and Engels had cultivated in their works for over three decades: the economic base of society is prior to and more fundamental than its superstructure.

The class struggle is a battle fought within the economic base of society between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. As such, it is also fought in all of the manifestations of the superstructure, of which the tiny parliament is but one of the many institutions of state, and the state in turn only one of many components of the social superstructure. These “Marxists” handily neglected the primary mode of the class-struggle, and the trade unions that had formed as a direct consequence of the class struggle. The trade union wasn't just denied revolutionary potential; it was totally disregarded and placed as a secondary institution to the party's parliamentary designs on power.

Even while the Socialist Labor Party made gestures to bourgeois respectability during the period immediately prior to the First World War, the party never abandoned its revolutionary orientation. The political struggle of the working class was properly understood to be broader than just elections. Elections would only be one aspect of the emerging vanguard's function within the proletariat. In many ways, the experience of the Socialist Labor Party would serve as a prototype to Lenin's writings on the nature of the revolutionary vanguard following the October Revolution.

As the vanguard party, the SLP would serve as the “university of the working class,” educating the the proletariat in the theory of revolution, and providing the organization tools to teach the working class a means of resisting capital. In doing so, it would coordinate the totality of politics, and its intersection with social life. The vanguard party's apparatus would provide an authentically proletarian alternative to the organized corruption of the city machines, offering the means of subsistence, and most importantly, dignity and self-respect as a worker. As a rule of American politics, wherever the machiens retreated or were dissolved, the vanguard party quickly advanced to fill the vacuum. The Republican campaigns against the corrupt Democratic Party machines prior to the 1912 General Election, and which only barely ensured victory for the Republicans, would leave a fallow field for working class organization to grow in.

...The SLP's and the Solidarity union's policy with regards to small freeholders and rural farm workers was another important revolutionary deviation with the whiggish orthodoxy of the European Lasalleans. The unique absence of feudal legacies, especially serfdom and religious absolutism, in American history created a vital difference in American class dynamics. Unlike in Europe, the rural farmer was not a peasant. The whole of the rural areas of America were not populated with a vast reactionary mass; instead, the rural worker and the freeholder were members of and natural allies of the urban proletariat respectively.

The 1912 General Election demonstrated this abundantly to the ruling classes, as vast sections of the rural Midwest and Western states turned out to support the Socialist Labor Party. Almost half of the Socialist caucus in the House of Representatives would come from predominantly rural western states, and these states had large slates of Socialists in their own state legislatures.

Excerpts from Sean Hannity, A History of the Worker's Vanguard in America, 1876-1946, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)


The period from the mid 1890s to the start of the First World War is often described by historians of the left as the Rise of Monopoly Capital. This pithy phrase, while apt, unfortunately cannot capture the full terror of this era. Never before in history had the economic power of society been constituted and consolidated into so few hands. These robber barons, men like John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Charles Schwab and Henry Morrison Flagler, often massed fortunes literally one million times greater than the wealth of the average worker.

Through entirely legal machinations, the cartels of this era centralized ever greater sections of capital into united combines called “trusts”. As they expanded, they plowed their lesser competitors under by the score.
The reasons for this expansion of capital have been well understood by modern political economy. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist society, first elucidated by Marx in Vol. 3 of Capital, is the inexorable historical force that drives the concentration of capital. As he noted, within the capitalist epoch “it is thereby proved a logical necessity that in its development the general average rate of surplus-value must express itself in a falling general rate of profit.” As the value of past labor, capital, increases exponentially with accumulation, the volume of current labor shrinks in proportion. Thus:
“...it follows that the portion of living labour, unpaid and congealed in surplus-value, must also be continually on the decrease compared to the amount of value represented by the invested total capital. Since the ratio of the mass of surplus-value to the value of the invested total capital forms the rate of profit, this rate must constantly fall.”
As the rate of profit fell, the very nature of capitalist market competition drove consolidation. It was no longer enough to be content with dozens of competitors in a given commodity market. But the size of the market for goods simply could not expand fast enough to keep in pace with the falling rate of profit. Without consolidation, each passing year would bring ever diminishing returns to capital, and thus stagnation. The successful firms, chiefed by the most ruthless and unscrupulous, acted first. They destroyed their competitors by whatever means they could, and absorbed their empires into their own. They colluded with one another to form cartels to maintain profits for themselves and their shareholders. And through the consolidation of power in the monopoly trust, they came to dominate political power within the state.

It was simply no longer the case that the state was “the executive committee to manage the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.” The state became the executive committee of the national bourgeoisie. The final logic of moribund capitalism was the corporatist state, in its liberal and fascist forms.

As part of the centralization drive, the trusts turned themselves to the seemingly largest champion of labor, and brought the full force of their might upon it. They crushed the American Federation of Labor, in spite of the pathetic class-collaborationist organization's sycophantic attitude towards capital. True to the inexorable dialectic of history, every action taken to preserve capital only dug its grave deeper. Through their machinations, the trusts worked harder than any activist to build the Socialist Labor Party and the Solidarity industrial union. Only too late would they realize that they had created their personal undertaker and reaper.

The Socialist Labor Party as a national party: Primary Documents, circa 1912


National Platform
Socialist Labor Party of America
Adopted by the Thirteenth National Convention, Toledo, June 1912
And approved by a general vote of the party’s membership.
*

The Socialist Labor Party of the United States of America in National Convention assembled in Toledo on June 7th, 1912, re-affirming its previous platform pronouncements, and in accord with the International Socialist Movement, declares:

Social conditions, as illustrated by the events that crowded into the last four years, have ripened so fast that each and all the principles, hitherto proclaimed by the Socialist Labor Party, and all and each the methods that the Socialist Labor Party has hitherto advocated, stand to-day most
conspicuously demonstrated.

The Capitalist Social System has wrought its own destruction. Its leading exponents, the present incumbent in the Presidential Chair, and his counterpart in the First Secretariat, however seemingly at war with each other on principles, cannot conceal the identity of their political views. The oligarchy proclaimed by the tenets of the one, the monarchy proclaimed by the tenets of the other, jointly proclaim the conviction of the foremost men in the Ruling Class that the Republic of Capital is at the end of its tether. True to the economic laws from which Socialism proceeds, dominant wealth has to such an extent concentrated into the hands of a select few, the Plutocracy, that the lower layers of the Capitalist Class feel driven to the ragged edge, while the large majority of the people, the Working Class, are being submerged.

True to the sociologic laws, by the light of which Socialism reads its forecasts, the Plutocracy is breaking through its republic-democratic shell and is stretching out its hands towards Absolutism in government; the property-holding layers below it are turning at bay; the proletariat is awakening to its consciousness of class, and thereby to the perception of its historic mission. In the midst of this hurly, all the colors of the rainbow are being projected upon the social mists from the prevalent confusion of thought. From the lower layers of the Capitalist Class the bolder, yet foolhardy, portion bluntly demands that “the Trust be contained.”

Even if the Trust could, it should not be contained; even if it should it cannot. The law of social progress pushes towards a system of production that shall crown the efforts of man, without arduous toil, with an abundance of the necessaries for material existence, to the end of allowing leisure for mental and spiritual expansion. The Trust is a mechanical contrivance wherewith to solve the problem. To smash the contrivance were to re- introduce the days of small-fry competition, and set back the hands of the dial of Time. The mere thought is foolhardy. He who undertakes the feat might as well brace himself against the cascade of Niagara. The cascade of Social Evolution would whelm him.

The less bold among the smaller property-holding element proposes to “curb” the Trust with a variety of schemes. The very forces of social evolution that propel the development of the Trust stamp the “curbing” schemes, whether political or economic, as childish. They are attempts to hold back a runaway horse by the tail. The laws by which the attempt has been tried strew the path of the runaway. They are splintered to pieces with its kicks, and serve only to furnish a livelihood for the Corporation and the Anti- Corporation lawyer.

From still lower layers of the same property-holding class, social layers that have sniffed the breath of Socialism and imagine themselves Socialists, comes the iridescent theory of capturing the Trust for the people by the ballot only. The “capture of the Trust for the people” implies the Social Revolution. To imply the Social Revolution with the ballot only, without the means to enforce the ballot’s fiat, in case of Reaction’s attempt to override it, is to fire blank cartridges at a foe. It is worse. It is to threaten his existence without the means to carry out the threat. Threats of revolution, without provisions to carry them out result in one of two things only—either the leaders are bought out, or the revolutionary class, to which the leaders appeal and which they succeed in drawing after themselves, are led like cattle to the shambles. The Commune disaster of France stands a monumental warning against the blunder.

An equally iridescent hue of the rainbow is projected from a still lower layer, a layer that lies almost wholly within the submerged class—the theory of capturing the Trust for the Working Class with the fist only. The capture of the Trust for the people implies something else, besides revolution. It implies revolution carried on by the masses. For reasons parallel to those that decree the day of small-fry competition gone by, mass-revolutionary conspiracy is, to-day, an impossibility. The Trust-holding Plutocracy may successfully put through a conspiracy of physical force. The smallness of its numbers makes a successful conspiracy possible on its part. The hugeness of the numbers requisite for a revolution against the Trust-holding Plutocracy excludes Conspiracy from the arsenal of the Revolution. The idea of capturing the Trust with physical force only is a wild chimera.

Only two programs—the program of the Plutocracy and the program of the Socialist Labor Party—grasp the situation. The Political State, another name for the Class State, is worn out in this, the leading capitalist Nation of the world, most prominently. The Industrial or Socialist State is
throbbing for birth. The Political State, being a Class State, is government separate and apart from the productive energies of the people; it is government mainly for holding the ruled class in subjection. The Industrial or Socialist State, being the denial of the Class State, is government that is part and parcel of the productive energies of the people. As their functions are different, so are the structures of the two States
different.

The structure of the Political State contemplates territorial “representation” only; the structure of the Industrial State contemplates representation of industries, of useful occupations only. The economic or industrial evolution has reached that point where the Political State no longer can maintain itself under the forms of democracy. While the Plutocracy has relatively shrunk, the enemies it has raised against itself have become too numerous to be dallied with. What is still worse, obedient to the law of its own existence the Political State has been forced not merely to multiply enemies against itself; it has been forced to recruit and group the bulk of these enemies, the revolutionary bulk, at that.

The Working Class of the land, the historically revolutionary element, is grouped by the leading occupations, agricultural as well as industrial, in such manner that the “autonomous craft union,” one time the palladium of the workers, has become a harmless scare-crow upon which the capitalist birds roost at ease, while the Industrial Unions cast ahead of them the constituencies of the government of the future, and, jointly, point to the Industrial State. It should be of no surprise to anyone that the harmless scare-crow has been cast aside by the class-conscious Working Class.

Nor yet is this all. Not only has the Political State raised its own enemies; not only has itself multiplied them; not only has itself recruited and drilled them; not only has itself grouped them into shape and form to succeed it; it is, furthermore, driven by its inherent necessities, prodding on the Revolutionary Class by digging ever more fiercely into its flanks the harpoon of exploitation.

With the purchasing power of wages sinking to ever lower depths; with certainty of work hanging on ever slenderer threads; with an ever more gigantically swelling army of the unemployed; with the needs of profits pressing the Plutocracy harder and harder recklessly to squander the workers’ limbs and life; what with all this and the parallel process of merging the workers of all industries into one interdependent solid mass, the final break-up is rendered inevitable, and at hand. No wild schemes and no rainbow-chasing will stead in the approaching emergency. The Plutocracy knows this—and so does the Socialist Labor Party—and logical is the program of each.

The program of the Plutocracy is feudalic Autocracy, translated into Capitalism. Where a Social Revolution is pending, and, for whatever reason, is not enforced, REACTION is the alternative.

The program of the Socialist Labor Party is REVOLUTION—the Industrial or Socialist Republic, the Social Order where the Political State is overthrown; where the Congress of the land consists of the representatives of the useful occupations of the land; where, accordingly, a government is an essential factor in production; where the blessings to man that the Trust is instinct with are freed from the trammels of the private ownership that now turn the potential blessings into a curse; where, accordingly, abundance can be the patrimony of all who work; and the shackles of wage slavery are no more. In keeping with the goals of the different programs are the means of their execution. The means in contemplation by REACTION is the bayonet. To this end REACTION is seeking, by means of the police spy and other agencies, to lash the proletariat into acts of violence that may give a color to the resort to the bayonet.

By its manoeuvres, it is egging the Working Class on to deeds of fury. The capitalist press echoes the policy, while the pure and simple political Socialist party press, generally, is snared into the trap. On the contrary, the means firmly adhered to by the Socialist Labor Party is the constitutional method of political action, backed by the industrially and class-consciously organized proletariat, to the exclusion of Anarchy, and all that thereby hangs. At such a critical period in the Nation’s existence the Socialist Labor Party calls upon the Working Class of America, more deliberately serious than ever before, to rally at the polls under the Party’s banner. And the Party also calls upon all intelligent citizens to place themselves squarely upon the ground of Working Class interests, and join us in this mighty and noble work of human emancipation, so that we may put summary end to the existing barbarous class conflict by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation and distribution into the hands of the people as a collective body, and substituting for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder, the Socialist or Industrial Commonwealth—a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factories.

The Toledo Programme

Ratified June 15th, in National Convention assembled.


The Socialist Labor Party declares that the capitalist system has outgrown its historical function, and has become utterly incapable of meeting the problems now confronting society. We denounce this outgrown system as incompetent and corrupt and the source of unspeakable misery and suffering to the whole working class.

Under this system the industrial equipment of the nation has passed into the absolute control of a plutocracy which exacts an annual tribute of hundreds of millions of dollars from the producers. Unafraid of any organized resistance, it stretches out its greedy hands over the still undeveloped re- sources of the nation-the land, the mines, the forests and the water powers of every State of the Union.

In spite of the multiplication of labor-saving machines and improved methods in industry which cheapen the cost of production, the share of the producers grows ever less, and the prices of all the necessities of life steadily increase. The boasted prosperity of this nation is for the owning class alone. To the rest it means only greater hardship and misery. The high cost of living is felt in every home. Millions of wage-workers have seen the purchasing power of their wages decrease until life has become a desperate battle for mere existence.

Multitudes of unemployed walk the streets of our cities or trudge from State to State awaiting the will of the masters to move the wheels of industry. The farmers in every state are plundered by the increasing prices exacted for tools and machinery and by extortionate rents, freight rates and storage charges.

Capitalist concentration is mercilessly crushing the class of small business men and driving its members into the ranks of propertyless wage-workers. The overwhelming majority of the people of America are being forced under a yoke of bondage by this soulless industrial despotism.

It is this capitalist system that is responsible for the increasing burden of armaments, the poverty, slums, child labor, most of the insanity, crime and prostitution, and much of the disease that afflicts mankind.

Under this system the working class is exposed to poisonous conditions, to frightful, and needless perils to life and limb, is walled around with court decisions, injunctions and unjust laws, and is preyed upon incessantly for the benefit of the controlling oligarchy of wealth. Under it also, the children of the working class are doomed to ignorance, drudging toil and darkened lives.

In the face of these evils, so manifest that all thoughtful observers are appalled at them, the legislative representatives of the Republican and Dernocratic parties remain the faithful servants of the oppressors.

The Minimum Programme


As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its ultimate aim, the co-operative commonwealth, and to increase its power against capitalist oppression, we advocate and pledge ourselves and our elected officers to the following program:

Collective Ownership

1.) The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express service, steamboat lines, and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large scale industries.
2.) The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the states or the federal government of all grain elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses, and other distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
3.) The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water power.
4.) The further conservation and development of natural resources for the use and benefit of all the people: . . .
5.) The collective ownership of land wherever practicable, and in cases where such ownership is impractical, the appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all the land held for speculation and exploitation.
6.) The collective ownership and democratic management of the banking and currency system, administered through the Bank of the Republic.

Unemployment

The immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all useful public works. All persons employed on such works t be engaged directly by the government under a work day of not more than eight hours and at not less than the prevailing union wages. The government also to establish employment bureaus; to lend money to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works, and to take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class.

Industrial Demands

The conservation of human resources, particularly of the lives and well-being of the workers and their families:
1. By shortening the work day in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery.
2. By securing for every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week.
3. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops, factories and mines.

Political Demands

1. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
2. The adoption of a graduated income tax and the extension of in- heritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin-the proceeds of these taxes to be employed in the socialization of industry.
3. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and the substitution of collective ownership, with direct reward to inventors by premiums or royalties.
4. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women.
5. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally.
6. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the President.
7. The election of the President and Vice-President by direct vote of the people.
8. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people.
9. Abolition of the present restrictions upon the amendment of the constitution, so that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the voters in a majority of the States.
10. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs.
11. The extension of democratic government to all United States territory.
12. The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will secure full liberty to all schools of practice.
13. The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department.
14. Abolition of all federal districts courts and the United States circuit court of appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges for short terms.
15. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions.
16. The free administration of the law.
14. The calling of a convention for the revision of the constitution of the US.

Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance.


The Internationale

On August 1st, 1912, Solidarity and the Socialist Labor Party of America adopted an official lyrical translation of the French socialist anthem “L’Internationale”. In time, the Internationale would come to be not only the anthem of working-class struggles across the nation, but would eventually be enshrined in the 1934 Basic Law of the Union of American Socialist Republics as “the national anthem of the American workers, in solidarity with the workers of the world”.

The adopted lyrics represent a compromise between different traditions and nationalities within the American working class. Immigrants from European countries, especially Ireland or Scotland, were much more familiar with the British English version of the anthem, translated anonymously near the end of the 19th Century. However, native born Anglo-Americans tended to favor Charles H. Kerr’s translation made famous by the Wobblies’ Little Red Songbook. Naturally, the eventual compromise needed to strike a balance between the many ethnic groups within the American working class.

Lyrics

Arise, ye workers, from your slumbers
Arise, ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses, arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
Refrain:
’Tis the final conflict
Let each stand in his place
The Internationale
Shall be the human race.
’Tis the final conflict
Let each stand in his place
The Internationale
Shall be the human race.
Behold them seated in their glory
The kings of mine and rail and soil!
What have you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil?
The fruits of the workers’ toil are buried
In strongholds of the idle few
In fighting for their restitution
The people only claim their due.
Refrain
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.
Refrain
No savior from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.
Refrain
  1. Errata: The previous updates about U.S. Steel were incorrect. I misread my source; U.S. Steel itself wasn't formed until the merger of National Steel and the Tennessee Iron and Coal Company. My apologies, and consider this a retroactive fix for the previous update.
  2. Detailed results further down
  3. Yeah, this little literary flourish is sadly not my own. Thank whichever British subject who decided to code the telegram IOTL. For reference, the Psalm excerpt reads “That he may bring out of the Earth, oil, and with it to make a cheerful countenance”
  4. Change total is positive, due to the admission of Oklahoma as a State.
  5. The Taft-Wilson Administration:
    President: William Howard Taft (R-OH)
    Vice President: James S. Sherman (R-NY)
    First Secretary: Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
    Secretary of State: Phillander C. Cox (R-PA)
    Secretary of War: Newton D. Baker (D-OH)
    Secretary of the Treasury: William G. McAdoo (D-CA)
    Secretary of Commerce & Labor: Champ Clark (D-MO)
    Attorney-General: Alexander M. Palmer (D-PA)
    Secretary of the Navy: Theodore Roosevelt (SD-NY)
    Secretary of the Interior: John Sharp Williams (D-MS)
  6. IOTL, Louis Hartz was a political scientist, and his book, The Liberal Tradition, argued a form of American exceptionalism that, in his opinion, made socialist values antithetical to the American political tradition. ITTL, he has come to the exact opposite conclusion.
 
WWI: 1914
The First World War

Prologue: Like the Snows of Yesteryear…

President Taft’s 1914 State of the Union address talked of “peace and prosperity in our time”, and promised that his administration’s policies would be directed towards promoting those ends for the nation. As the thunderous applause in the halls of Congress died down, the grim execution of this promise lay but a few months away.

On 28 June, a group of Serbian nationalists carried out an ill-planned and ill-conceived assassination in the streets of Sarajevo. Their target, Austro-Hungarian heir apparent Franz Ferdinand, was fatally shot that afternoon by the young Serb Gavrileau Princips. Austria’s rapid mobilization to punish independent Serbia soon triggered a Russian mobilization. France soon followed, calling up reserves in preparation for a general European war.

Germany, the growing titan of central Europe, mobilized in response to the threats against her ally Austria. Diplomatic efforts to halt the plunge towards war soon became mere token formalities given the nature of the revanchist regime in France, and as ultimatums were left unheeded a general state of war across the whole of Europe followed. The European parties of the Second Internationale, in spite of their commitments in the 1912 extraordinary world congress, all capitulated within days, voting for war credits.

Germany soon invaded the Low Countries as part of the later infamous Schlieffen Plan. Their aim was to move mass columns of troops across France’s undefended Belgian border to outflank French static defenses, followed by a deep salient penetration to capture Paris and end the war in the west. The violation of Belgian neutrality provoked Britain to declare war on Germany. The Schlieffen Plan would also export this European war across the Atlantic, to Canada and even the United States, which hitherto had always committed itself to general neutrality to European affairs.

According to the 1912 Toronto Treaty, passed in a closed session of the U.S. Senate, the United States would stand in solidarity with the UK if ever the neutrality of a British ally was violated resulting in a state of invasion or occupation. While the clauses of this treaty allowed the U.S. to remain neutral in most possible European conflagrations, the language of the treaty clearly applied to the Belgian question. President Taft, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, argued that the terms of the treaty made the U.S. at a de facto state of war with the German Reich.

A resolution formalizing the state of war was soon passed, with the Socialist Labor Party standing in firm opposition along with a few dissident members of the Democratic Party as well as the last remainder of the populist-progressive wing of the Republican Party. The vote for war mobilization soon followed, this time with the Socialist Labor Party standing alone in opposition to committing to the imperialist slaughter.

The Schlieffen Plan required that the French military be committed elsewhere to ensure its resolution. In a rare coincidence, French war planners obliged their German counterparts with General War Plan XVII. Under the mobilization scheme of the plan, the French military would concentrate on the narrow frontier between Germany and France and begin an assault into Alsace-Lorraine, under German occupation since 1871.

By the end of the year, neither France nor Germany succeeded in accomplishing their primary objectives. The Schlieffen Plan, for all of its precision, was logistically impossible. In spite of the efforts of the best logisticians the world had to offer, there simply were not enough roads and rail to move troops and supplies fast enough to exploit the breach. Both sides had fundamentally underestimated the ferocity of modern warfare. When the lines stabilized in the Winter of 1914-5, both the French and the Germans had completely exhausted prewar ammunition stockpiles, especially for the increasingly vital artillery.

In spite of noted successes in the Lorraine campaign, French troops were by and large stuck back in the massive frontier fortifications. On the left flank of the growing trench line, the Germany military was camped uncomfortably close to Paris, and large portions of French industry were now in German hands.

The days of wars decided by brilliant leaders and decisive battles were as dead as the one million soldiers killed in the Frontier battles. In spite of the stigma of incompetence given to WWI generals, both the Allies and the Central Powers displayed a level of professionalism in stark contrast to the experience of previous wars. It could even be argued that on the whole, both sides did the best they could with the resources they had.

Stabilization_of_Western_Front_WWI.PNG

Stabilization of the Frontier, Winter 1914-5, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the History Department of the United States Military Academy.

Some Things Never Change...

It is a sweltering September day on the Kent State University campus, as hungover and exhausted college students gratefully retreat into the air-conditioned confines of Norman Thomas Hall. Noon is far too early to be discussing modern history, they collectively mumble; but it’s better than being outside, and the comfy chairs in the lecture hall will make napping easy.

For the professor, today is another great day in the academy, only slightly spoiled by ungrateful students. Dr. Demetriades quickly hangs up his fedora on the coat rack before scrawling on the white board in bold “WORLD WAR I”. There’s a murmur of groans from the lecture hall; World War I was so last century. The professor turns to the class and jokes, “I’m sure I can confidently assume that you’ve all read Chapter 14 of Zinn’s People’s History and the first three chapters of Hobshawn’s Age of Extremes that I assigned on Friday..."

It’s a tough crowd for the professor-cum-comedian. He points out at random to one of the students, and asks “Can you tell me at least one of the principal causes of World War I?”

The spiky haired youth scoffs, “Shit no. This stuff is boring, reading about ‘historical matrimony’ and stuff.”

“Historical materialism,” the professor corrects him. “It may be boring to you, but these events aren’t just dusty pages in a book—they actually happened, and they continue to affect where we are today.”

The youth shrugs, clearly not caring.

“Okay then, what would you rather be learning about, then?”

“I dunno, something exciting, like when General Patton led the Bonus Army to take DeLeon-Debs, D.C. during the Revolution. Something like that, you’know.”

The professor resists the urge to correct the young man about how Patton was only a Lieutenant Colonel at the time, and that the ‘Bonus Army’ and the many volunteers, militiamen and deserters that marched with them had restyled themselves as the Red Army months before, and that DeLeon-Debs, D.C. was still called Washington at the time. Instead, he points out the fact that should be so obvious: “But without his experiences in the trenches of the First World War, Patton would have just been any other career military officer. He’d have been with MacArthur shooting the strikers in Pennsylvania, not defending them. We’re reading his war diaries later this week—it’s all right on the syllabus.

“We study history because it tells us about how we got where we are today. This is why I can say that the German Reich’s decision to build a railroad from Berlin to Baghdad is just as important to American history as the Second Revolution was. The millions of American soldiers who died in the mud of Northern France from 1914 to 1918 radicalized American workers at home and vindicated the Socialists’ opposition to the war. That is why I’m asking you, humbly, to please pay attention in my class. College education may be free in this country, unlike in the Anglo-French Union, but that doesn’t mean you should waste this opportunity.”

The professor stepped off his soapbox, and turned to the whiteboard, and busily sketched down some important bullet points.

Excerpts from Howard Zinn, A People's History of America, (San Francisco: Black Flag Press, 1982)[1]

"War is the health of the state," the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches.
In the old United States, not yet in the war, there was worry about the health of the state. Socialism was growing. The IWSU seemed to be everywhere. Class conflict was intense. In the summer of 1914, during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, a bomb exploded, killing nine people; two local radicals, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, were arrested and would spend twenty years in prison. Shortly after that Senator James Wadsworth of New York suggested compulsory military training for all males to avert the danger that "these people of ours shall be divided into classes." Rather: "We must let our young men know that they owe some responsibility to this country."

The supreme fulfillment of that responsibility was taking place in Europe. Ten million were to die on the battlefield; 20 million were to die of hunger and disease related to the war. And no one since that day has been able to show that the war brought any gain for humanity that would be worth one human life. The rhetoric of the socialists, that it was an "imperialist war," now seems moderate and hardly arguable. The advanced capitalist countries of Europe were fighting over boundaries, colonies, spheres of influence; they were competing for Alsace-Lorraine, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East.

The war came shortly after the opening of the twentieth century, in the midst of exultation (perhaps only among the elite in the Western world) about progress and modernization. One day after the English declared war, Henry James wrote to a friend: "The plunge of civilization into this abyss of blood and darkness ... is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be ... gradually bettering." In the first Battle of the Maine, the British and French succeeded in blocking the German advance on Paris. Each side had 500,000 casualties.
The killing started very fast, and on a large scale. In August 1914, a volunteer for the British army had to be 5 feet 8 inches to enlist. By October, the requirement was lowered to 5 feet 5 inches. That month there were thirty thousand casualties, and then one could be 5 feet 3. In the first three months of war, almost the entire original British army was wiped out.

Into this pit of death and deception came the United States, in the spring of 1915. President William Howard Taft had promised American intervention in the fall of the previous year, citing the mutual defense treaty with the British Empire. “The violation of Belgian neutrality,” he said in his address before the Congress, “is an unparalleled act of barbarism. The German Empire seeks to subjugate all of Europe under its jackboot. The freedom of all peoples is imperiled by the Hunnic hordes.”

As Richard Hofstadter points out (The American Political Tradition): "This was rationalization of the flimsiest sort.. . ." The war would be a principled defense of Belgian neutrality, while the plucky Belgians themselves were defending Congolese ivory and rubber from the native people they subjugated, or from the Germans who sought to relieve them of their spoils. The French and the British too had unleashed unparalleled savagery in their own colonies. Hofstadter says Taft "was forced to find moral reasons for policies that were based not upon morality but upon the balance of power and economic necessities."

Hofstadter wrote of "economic necessities" behind Taft's and later Wilson's war policy. In 1914 a serious recession had begun in the United States. J. P. Morgan later testified: "The war opened during a period of hard times. ... Business throughout the country was depressed, farm prices were deflated, unemployment was serious, the heavy industries were working far below capacity and bank clearings were off." But by 1915, war orders for the Allies (mostly England) had stimulated the economy, and by April 1917 more than $2 billion worth of goods had been sold to the Allies. American mobilization for war would bring additional billions more in orders to the stagnant industries. As Hofstadter says: "America became bound up with the Allies in a fateful union of war and prosperity."

Prosperity depended much on foreign markets, it was believed by the leaders of the country. In 1897, the private foreign investments of the United States amounted to $700 million dollars. By 1914 they were $3 billion. The industrialists and the political leaders talked of prosperity as if it were classless, as if everyone gained from Morgan's loans. True, the war meant more production, more employment, hut did the workers in the steel plants gain as much as U.S. Steel, which made $618 million in profit in 1915 alone? When the United States entered the war, it was the rich who took even more direct charge of the economy. Financier Bernard Baruch headed the War Industries Board, the most powerful of the wartime government agencies. Bankers, railroad men, and industrialists dominated these agencies.

… In spite the rousing words of National Unity Government's First Secretary Wilson about a war "to end all wars" and "to make the world safe for democracy," Americans did not rush to enlist. Millions of men were needed, hut in the first six weeks after the declaration of war only 45,000 volunteered. Congress voted overwhelmingly for a draft.

George Creel, a veteran newspaperman, became the government's official propagandist for the war; he set up a Committee on Public Information to persuade Americans the war was right. It sponsored 75,000 speakers, who gave 750,000 four-minute speeches in five thousand American cities and towns. It was a massive effort to excite a reluctant public. At the beginning of 1915, a member of the National Civic Federation had complained that "neither workingmen nor farmers" were taking "any part or interest in the efforts of the security or defense leagues or other movements for national preparedness."

The day after Congress declared war, the Socialist Labor Party met in emergency convention in St. Louis and called the declaration "a crime against the people of the United States." In the winter of 1914-5, Socialist antiwar meetings in Minnesota drew large crowds-twenty thousand, thirty thousand thousand, fifty thousand farmers-protesting the war, the draft, profiteering. A local newspaper in Wisconsin, the Plymouth Review, said that probably no party ever gained more rapidly in strength than the Socialist party just at the present time." It reported that "thousands assemble to hear Socialist speakers in places where ordinarily a few hundred are considered large assemblages." The Akron Beacon-Journal, a conservative newspaper in Ohio, said there was "scarcely a political observer ... but what will admit that were an election to come now a mighty tide of socialism would inundate the Middle West." It said the country had "never embarked upon a more unpopular war." In the municipal elections of 1914-5, against the tide of propaganda and patriotism, the Socialists made remarkable gains. Thirty Socialists were elected to the New York State legislature. In Chicago, the party vote went from 18.6 percent in 1913 to 48.1 percent in 1915. In Buffalo, it went from 9.6 percent to 38.2 percent.

Excerpt from James P. Cannon, Days in Red: A Memoir, (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, Chicago, 1969).
...The vote on [President] Taft’s mobilization bill was scheduled for the second day of new Congressional term. Fresh from his party’s election victory, he expected [House Speaker] Champ Clark to comply with his bill with no debate and at all due haste. Of course, we had other plans. Solidarity’s Central Committee voted unanimously to call for a nationwide general strike of all of the affiliates the week before the opening of the new Congress. I can still remember being on the picket lines in front of the steel mills that day.

...The working class unity was amazing. For the first time that I could recall, black and white, native and foreigner agreed to put aside all differences, if only for this one moment in time. Even though the horrors of the First World War had yet to be revealed to anyone so far from the fronts, the great fear of another major war, begun for seemingly no reason other than to ensure that bankers would get a return on their loans, quickly turned into anger and, for the moment, a galvanized resolve to oppose the war.

...We got exactly what we wanted; we gave them pause for debate. However, the general strike turned out to be a sword that cut both ways. Until now, the political classes had been apathetic about the rise of industrial unionism and the Socialist Party. It was all too easy to give ground and let the radicals recruit another worker than to deal with them in any concerted fashion either through terror or appeasement. Our united front had unwittingly unleashed the largest domestic terror and propaganda war by any State extant in the world at the time.​
Excerpts from Patton’s War Diaries, 1915-1919, by Martin Bluemenson, Ed. (Washington State University Press, 1972).
August 3, 1914

Was ecstatic today to learn that we [America] would go to war against Kaiser Billy soon. It would be a great tragedy to miss out on the great War of this generation. And to be doing it for such a noble cause[2] should be the dream of every Christian soldier to fight and die for. It will be some time before we actually can ship out, and I do feel anxious about leaving my young wife so soon, but I have talked to her about it and she feels filled with pride that her husband has such devotion to duty. An acquaintance at the officer’s club informed me that such a sentiment is unlikely to last, and since he is many years my senior I am inclined to trust him on the matter. But her heart is in the right place.

I read this morning that the damned Socialist leader Debs had pledged to do everything in his power to stop the war. Such a prominent firebrand of a leader speaking such things on the eve of war ought to be put up against a wall. But I am told that only the savage nations permit such practices, and I will leave the matter at that...

December 2, 1914

...Also informed of possible promotion today. With the mobilization for war, I am told that a major expansion of the Army is now under way. Still, would have rather learned that promotion had come because of merit rather than a sudden urgent need for more First Lieutenants.

April 5, 1915

Currently aboard ship headed for France. The A.E.F.[3], I am told, will be deploying on the line somewhere, though for obvious reasons I still do not know where. One of the more cynical lieutenants remarked that the whole A.E.F. was nothing more than a propaganda ploy. Suspect him of being a Socialist subversive, though I am wondering if he is how he made it through West Point. He carries the air of the professional, educated soldier, though I wonder if it is indeed just cynicism on his part.

June 4, 1915

Haven’t written for several days. Still trying to make sense of it all. Our first action began on the 28th of May. We just arrived on the line to reinforce French push at Artois. We began the campaign with much enthusiasm; the news had told us the French were nearing a breakthrough and we were eager to push through the breach...On the front, the sound of the shelling was everywhere. I had never imagined warfare quite like this. My battalion would lead the charge. We went over the wall that morning, running through the fog over the broken earth. We covered no-man’s-land quickly, and encountered minimal resistance from the Huns. We neutralized their remaining machine gunners with minimal causalities and took their first trench with little difficulty. No sooner had we prepared to advance further than we came under bombardment. First thought the Frogs had fouled up the operation. But we were soon under massive attack from the Germans. No sooner had the bombardment lifted we saw waves of gray-uniformed German soldiers charging at us. We fought them off as long as possible, but they had the advantage of numbers and terrain. We were forced to retreat, abandoning all the ground we had gained, leaving behind many of our brothers....The Germans pressed us until the 1st on the line before the skirmishes stopped. Only just now beginning to make sense of it. We went over the wall with 1,120 men, exactly, as the Mstr. Sgt. informed me. By the time fighting died down, we had just over five hundred battle ready men. At least two hundred were killed in the initial engagement, and the remaining wounded, missing and dead accumulating over the next four days.

June 30, 1915

In the battalion infirmary today. The doctors tell me that I suffered “mild exposure” to “chlorine gas” during the fighting. I suppose that means they think I should feel more gracious about my fortune. Ashamed to say that I too retreated from the yellow gas clouds. A week ago, I had no knowledge of any such horrifying weapon. It came on the winds, and wafted into our trenches, and rather than stay and suffocate we all ran. Retreat could have turned into a route, but the winds reversed just in time, and we rallied to a secondary trench. Still, had to be carried off the lines on a stretcher, in spite of my insistence that I could still walk. Breathing has been more difficult than I’ve ever known, like being perpetually at a run. My lungs still burn some. I suppose it’s Christ’s Providence that it wasn’t worse. The man in the bed next to me suffocated in the night. Still feel shame over retreating without orders. But men can be fought with bullets and steel, this gas cannot.

August 9th, 1915

The horrors of this war do not cease. We marched through a ruined French village today, finally leaving the line. What I saw I’ll never forget. The little French girl, in torn rags, crushed under the collapsed house, sinking in the mud; must have been killed by artillery bombardment. I can’t stop thinking about my little daughters, young Beatrice, and Ruth, whom I have not even been able to see, or to hold yet. What if my daughters, or my wife, or any of my family were killed, an innocent “casualty of war"? I left for France with so much resolve, but my experiences here have given me doubts about our purpose...

...Met a young lieutenant today, a one David Dwight Eisenhower. In our spare time we took to talking of things we missed back home. He tells me to call him by his boyhood nickname, Ike. I suppose it’s easier than picking him out of the many Davids in the world. He’s five years my junior, and unmarried, but he’s bright and a welcome confidant. Apparently he shares my growing doubts about the war, doubts which we wisely keep to ourselves lest it affect the men’s morale. Still, I am sure that our cause is just, even if the outcomes have been unsavory so far. Our road is not an easy one, and we must push onward.​
1. Text excerpted and altered from original, as originally presented in Chapter 14: War is the Health of the State. Copyrighted material borrowed in a spirit of socialist brotherhood. Rest in peace, Howard :)

2. Patton refers here to the violation of Belgian neutrality by the German military. Allied propaganda heavily played up alleged German atrocities in Belgium, many of them completely fabricated.

3. American Expeditionary Force; originally a single division (1st Infantry), rushed to France to bolster Allied morale, but would later be expanded to incorporate the bulk of the deployed American Army.
 
Nineteen-Fifteen: Into the Maelstrom

Excerpts from John Keegan, The First World War, (London: Hutchinson, 1998) 500 pages

...Following her induction into the Entente, the United States embarked upon a rapid drive to full wartime mobilisation. America's new parliamentary institutions were strengthened; First Secretary Joseph Cannon, a member of the President's Republican Party, stepped down, and Taft duly appointed Woodrow Wilson to his second tenure as chief of government. Though Wilson was a Democrat, he was the one man with the experience necessary to lead the state in the crucial affair of a national unity government. Wilson's Cabinet, for its part, wasted no time in making itself the focal institution for managing the war effort. Taft's newly created “War Cabinet” was quickly and decisively wrested under the control of the Wilson-Gillett diumvirate.

...The government's political difficulties were, however, immense, in spite of its commanding control of the United States Congress. While the coalition of dissenters, led by the Socialist Labor Party, controlled perhaps, at best, the votes of about 80 representatives and eight senators, the anti-war faction had tapped into massive public support outside the councils of government. Following the successful vote for war credits and military mobilization in early December of 1914, America's radicalized labour federation, the International Workers' Solidarity Union (IWSU) voted to walk out en masse.

The government's reaction to the anti-war strike was swift and brutal. Wilson, for lack of legal options, invoked the state of exception. The federal government quickly assumed extraordinary and extralegal powers to crush the strike. Habeas corpus was suspended, militia and police forces around the country were nationalised, and the army itself was mobilized without regard to Posse comitatus.(1) Order was soon restored, but at a bloody cost. The American rail workers had paralyzed the nations' commerce for almost three weeks, and industrial production nearly stopped altogether in many of the nation's industrial cities.
As part of the state of exception, the increasingly corporatist state assumed a greater role in directing the national economy. American dirigisme quickly crystallised, and the full might of the American economy was quickly marshaled towards war production. The Congress itself, long a target of derision for its rampant infighting, quickly assumed the role of a rubber stamp to the War Cabinet's directives. A slew of new laws, granting new powers to the state over both economic and personal life, were adopted: the Espionage and Sedition Acts, the Rationing Act, the Selective Service Act, the Industry and Commerce Act.

All this and more would be necessary. The United States entered the First World War with an army comprised of five infantry and two cavalry divisions, with scarcely 100,00 men in the whole of the active army. In spite of the massive public diplomacy campaigns to support the mobilization for war, less than ninety thousand young men volunteered for service within three weeks of the declaration of war. Drafts would be necessary to sustain the war effort...

...The mobilisation of industry, proved complicated as well. While the magnates of big business were enthusiastic at the commercial opportunities that the war effort and the powerful War Industries Committee in the Department of Industry would allow, organized labor remained militantly opposed throughout the war. While the major strikes quickly petered out in the face of state repression, small wildcat strikes, work stoppages, “work to code” slowdowns, and absenteeism plagued the mobilized industries. Unions also organized oppositions to recruitment, rationing and state repression of free speech.

Excerpt: A selection of posts from the alternatehistory.com discussion titled “Writing a TL – How do I get a Central Powers victory in WW1?”

HerrBean said:
Hai gaiz, I want to write a TL with a Central Powers victory over the Entente in OTL, but I don't exactly know how to get it. I also want to do something maybe different from other stuff on the subject, but I'm not quite sure what's come before. Here in the DBD, it's not exactly a very popular subject. Almost taboo really...If there's one thing that's even close to as hated as the Nazis, its the Hohenzollern Reich.

I think I know where to go with this, but I'm having trouble getting there. Thanks in advance!
LeninsBeard said:
We can definitely never have too many Germans on this board.
I think the bare minimum consensus that we've reached over the years is that America needs to be kept out of the war. American industrial might and troops definitely stacked things in the Entente's favor. That's not a silver bullet, but definitely a good start. I don't know enough about WW1 to comment further.
Laserz said:
Well, at the same time, it's become kind of a trope that American neutrality just leads straight to Entente defeat. Even a neutral American is still trading with the French and especially the British, supplying them with arms and credit to support their war effort. I really can't see America's hypercapitalists missing out on that bonanza of buying.

Even if America is neutral at first, they could get drawn in at a later date. The economic reasons for war are pretty plain. Still, having American divisions gone during those crucial days in 1915 and 1916 might mean the Germans can pull of some kind of successful offensive operation. The deteriorating morale of the French army could turn the tide.

IOTL, there was a pretty common complaint among French soldiers that Britain and America would fight the Germans to the last Frenchman, and in a lot of ways, it's unfortunately true. The French received the disproportionate share of the casualties thanks to political pressure to reduce British and American deaths.

Not like it helped all that well. The Americans lost almost a million men in those trenches, largely thanks to idiotic attempts to break trench warfare.

The Naval War

On January 12, 1915, the American heavy cruiser USS Montana (ACR-13) was attacked by a German U-boat approximately 100 kilometers off the Azore Islands. The 14,000 tonne ship, returning from a training cruise, was ambushed just after dawn. She quickly took two torpedoes on her port side. Taking on water rapidly, the Montana began to list heavily. In spite of this, her crew mustered to general quarters, and launched several salvoes from her complement of sixteen 5 inch guns. However, she could not hit the small target presented by the U-Boat's periscope. While the third torpedo missed, a fourth struck her just aft of midships, flooding the main-engineering spaces. She suffered a catastrophic boiler implosion, and quickly foundered. At 10:23 A.M., she slipped under the waves. Less than one quarter of her 859 man complement were rescued.

The naval war against Germany began long before the American Expeditionary Force set foot in France. With Germany's naval blockade of Britain, both economic and military considerations required that the Kaiserliche Marine be driven out of the North Atlantic. It would not do, either for the War Cabinet or American corporate interests to see millions of dollars of war material end at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The naval arms building began in earnest. U.S. Steel, chafing under the depressed state of the steel market, soon found an influx of orders for steel to sustain the massive expansion of the American Navy: fifteen new battleships in three classes, all built around an all-or-nothing armor scheme, four main turrets, and top speed of 21 knots, twenty new light cruisers, starting with the Omaha-class, and close to forty new destroyers spread across six classes of “thousand tonner” ships. Taken together with the growing losses of ship tonnage to German submarine warfare, ensured that the steel industry would remain profitable throughout the war. The beginning of the naval building campaign saw U.S. Steel acquiring a large stake in the Atlantic shipbuilding industry. Naturally, this proved to be quite profitable to the shareholders in the steel cartel.

In February of 1915, the US Navy sortied four of her coal-firing dreadnoughts to Scapa Flow, as a token of American involvement in the war effort. While the four ships were obsolete compared to the fast, oil burning super-dreadnoughts that were the pride of the Home Fleet, they were reliable, and even twelve-inch guns are deadly enough for most purposes. However, it was the symbolism of the act that was most important: the American Navy would stand with the British in defending their home island. And most importantly, the coal-fired ships wouldn't cut into Britain's scarce oil supplies.

War Mobilization


The War Cabinet first met on January 14, 1915. The first item on the agenda was not unexpected, but still controversial. In spite of their general agreement among the assembled leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties about the need to give the war effort the full resources of the United States, most had reservations about taking the despotic measures against the right to property that would be necessary to mobilize the economy.

The American military itself was tiny and woefully unprepared. Preliminary estimates delivered by the War Department recommended a full twenty-fold expansion of the US Army; the current volunteer rates would not come close to meeting that. The lack of enthusiasm also betrayed a greater problem in the public's lack of confidence in the motivations for war. The Wilson government agreed early on to solve the problem from two fronts. The beginnings of what would be the National Service Act of 1915 were laid down in this first meeting. Under the act, all able bodied males between the ages of 19 and 31 would be registered for potential service. Exemptions were made for those men who were working in vital war industries. The target set by the War Cabinet in January was to have just under one-million men inducted into the US Army by the end of the year, with a further two million drafted or volunteered by the end of 1916.

New bureaucracies were created to instill a sense of enthusiasm in the effort into the public. The most powerful of these would be a new Committee for Public Information and its ancillary agencies. Chaired by the journalism magnate George Creel, and including among its members the Secretaries of State, War and Commerce, as well as media moguls such as William Randolph Hearst, the CPI would become a permanent fixture of the American state.
Every form of mass media available, from newspapers and radio, to the burgeoning movie industry, to even dime-store novels, became mobilized for the purpose of dragging an unwilling public into the war effort. The face of Progressivism, upon which most members of the second Wilson government has built their political careers, had changed. Progressivism had been shaped into something gaudy and lethal; equal in militancy to the “Jack-booted Huns” the nation was being mobilized to fight.

For now, the campaigns bore their bitter fruit. The CPI was instrumental in halting the advance of Socialist Labor Party-led anti-war coalition, and for a time, managed to turn the tide of public opinion back, against the SLP. The Army and Navy would have their warm bodies to fill their ranks.

But warm bodies were not enough to fight a war, especially a modern one. As the American Expeditionary Force found in its first series of engagements in May-June of 1915, the American Army was woefully unprepared for the tenacity of trench warfare. While the 1st Infantry Division was well trained, and entered with high spirits, the unit entered combat under-equipped in both machine guns and artillery support. Lacking in both number of guns as well as ammunition stocks, 1st Infantry faired poorly in the first engagements in support of the French attacks near Artois.

In all, there was a tremendous burden placed on American industry to support the war effort. By winter of 1914, the federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts had produced some two-hundred thousand of the Model 1903 bolt-action rifle, chambered in the 30-06 cartridge. The Army would need millions more.

Everything from trench knives to boots, mess kits to artillery guns, would need to be mass-produced in short order to support a modern army that would quickly number in the millions. Mistakes were bound to be made along the way. Production problems, work stoppages, and confusing orders would plague the war industries throughout the war, but most acutely during the crucial first months. While the Army was able to eventually scrape together enough British and French surplus machine guns to supply the six lead divisions of the AEF adequately, the tide of new soldiers coming in the winter and next spring would need an American built alternative capable of using the same round as the standard battle rifle if the logistic system was to have any chance of coping.

The Browning Model 1915 machine gun was an excellent design, lighter and more reliable than the British Vickers or Maxim guns. However, its production, subcontracted to multiple manufacturers, was plagued by problems in the first runs. Most of the first run, serial numbers 1000 to 27000, faced considerable jamming problems due to tolerance problems, and had to be completely remachined. Other orders were delayed due to machining and assembly line problems.

Production orders with private arms manufacturers such as Colt and Winchester for the M1903 Springfield rifle were further complicated by the British Army's order for several hundred thousand of the Springfield rifles rechambered in the .303 British cartridge. During initial production runs, the receivers were not stamped effectively enough to differentiate the American and British models, and often times, large orders of the British model would wind up in the hands of American units and vice-versa.

In spite of the complications, the Department of Industrial Coordination's ever expanding bureaucracy proved efficient in coordinating the war effort and managing the collective affairs of the increasingly top-heavy cartels that dominated the American economy.
Western_front_1915-16.jpg

Major offensives of 1915 and 1916, courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons and the History Department of the United States Military Academy, uchronically edited by Jello_Biafra

The Entente Offensives


At the beginning of 1915, the German Heer occupied a large swath of Northeastern France. Large sections of French industry were under German occupation, and the frontlines themselves were perilously close to Paris. With the French General Staff and government fearing the possibility of a disastrous German breakout, and large portions of the country's warmaking capacity occupied or threatened, it became both politically and militarily imperative to push the Germans back.

In spite of mass strikes and war resistance, a steady stream of American reinforcements began starting in April. While 1st Infantry saw some fighting during June and July, the bulk of the AEF was held in reserve for a fall combined Entente offensive. In late July, the British Army renewed its offensives at the Loos. In August, the French began attacks at Vimy in the North and from the great fortress of Verdun in the South. The AEF joined the offensives at Champagne, with twelve divisions of American infantry, supported by a rag-tag collection of French artillery units, and American units utilizing scrounged British and French field guns as well as American guns.

In terms of the cost, in both manpower and equipment, they were staggering failures. The attempts to close the St. Mihil salient south of Verdun received devastating casualties tfrom German artillery and machine guns as they went over the wall into no-mans land. While they succeeded in taking German forward positions by the dawn of the third day, the French army was soon overwhelmed by German counterattacks, which soon pushed into the French front-line trenches and then into the rear. By the time the operation was cancelled in late October, the French Army had suffered over 90,000 casualities against 60,000 German casualties, gaining at best a few meters of ground here and there.

Up North, the British and German offensives, continuations of previous spring offensives, were similarly futile. Tens of thousands of men were lost for no appreciable gain. Neither side seemed capable of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare. The only appreciable progress in the whole of 1915 was in the combined Franco-American offensive at Champagne. In twelve weeks of desperate fighting, the AEF and the French Army pushed the frontlines forward approximately nine kilometers.

American soldiers in particular felt the brunt of the losses. They were literally being killed as fast as reinforcements arrived from across the Atlantic. The attack, beginning with ~110,000 men in twelve divisions, cost the lives of 180,000 American and 45,000 French soldiers. The attack, under the command of French Marshal Joffre, was a political disaster for Franco-American relations. American units, previously under French general command, would be separated in the fallout. American General John Pershing would be placed in command of American forces in Europe. On December 7, the United States Congress authorized the creation of new flag ranks for the Army and Navy, to give American flag officers parity with their Entente counterparts. Pershing would be the first promoted to the rank of Field Marshal.

1. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of federal uniformed services such as the Army or Navy in a law enforcement role on US soil except where expressly directed by the Constitution or the Congress. While the War Cabinet could have obtained a joint-resolution authorizing the mobilization of the army against the strikers, Wilson dispensed with this formality, creating the precedent for the state of exception.
 
Nineteen-Sixteen: Red Blood, Black Earth

Excerpt from Henry A. Wallace, Salt of the Earth (Nashville, TN: Pathfinder Press, 1963)
The war, I think, changed everything. I am candidly certain that had not over one million young American boys bled the soil of France red, then life as we know it today would be radically different. I’m sure it is the peculiar navel-gazing of old men and historians to ask what would have happened if some important event were to have been undone, but I cannot help to succumb to the temptation. One thing I do know for sure is that my own part in the war changed my life forever. The deaths of my comrades in the trenches of France and the militarization of society at home are an irrevocable part of me, and without them, I do believe I would have remained a simple farmer, happy with the smell of good tilled earth.[1] I’m sure I would have been happier for it.

...During the 1916 Red Scare, President Taft and all of the kings of mine, rail and factory declared that the Army deployed in France was becoming a “boot camp for communist, socialist and anarchist subversion”. I do not know much of other regiments, but that was certainly true of mine. My fellow enlisted men were my teachers in the great school of Marxism, and much of what I am today I learned there. When the “dangerous subversives” and “bomb-throwers” are the only men decrying the insanity of attacking machine guns with the chests of men, of sending men to dark and bloodied battlefields for the purpose of conquest and plunder, of killing our brothers so that the Imperialist scramble can continue unhindered; then we all come to find that perhaps we who went along with the bloodshed were the insane ones, not those who denounced it.

...The events of today give me trouble. When I see Foreign Secretary James Burnham’s dangerous game of cat and mouse with Nikita Khrushchev over which direction the Comintern will sway; or when watching the nervous tension in the news broadcasters and official government spokesman as they tried to calmly explain to us that the missile deployments in Ireland[2] have brought us two minutes away from midnight, I sense that we are in an age that is every bit as pivotal as the First World War.​
Excerpt from Barry Goldwater, The Last Days of the Republic (Havana: Freedom Press, 1961)
It became very clear by 1916 that the Republic that our Founding Fathers had labored so hard to build, placing all the best hopes for humanity in, was entering its twilight years. A great proletarian mass from below, driven by immigrant anarchists, foreign agitators and home-grown demagogues, had come to reject the Enlightenment liberal values of the nation. Set against them, the great captains of industry had too forgotten what had made America great. Caught in between the great tides of Communism and Corporatism, the Constitution could not long endure.

Nevertheless, it became quite clear that the proletarian agitators were the aggressive party. The nation, caught in a war against Prussian militarism, found it self facing a great treasonous uprising among the unwashed masses. Rather than wage a war for liberty, they waged a class war against the Republic and the Constitution. It is no hypocrisy for those who defend liberty to use all means at their disposal to destroy the forces that threaten liberty. The Communists who accuse the War Government of being “proto-fascists” had far less noble of aims than the government they betrayed.

Starting with the so-called “Bloody Valentine Raids”, the government aimed to suppress such seditious conduct by the Socialist Labor Party. Of the thousands of party activists and leaders arrested under the Espionage and Conspiracy Acts, not a single one of them was guilty of anything less than seditious libel, and a fair number of them were guilty of outright treason. While the leaders of Congressional opposition could not be arrested under federal law, thanks to the immunity granted to them by the very Constitution they sought to destroy, the National Executive of the Party, and of the trade union congress were arrested.

While a number remained fugitives of justice until the granting of amnesty by the post-war presidency of Leonard Wood, the party itself was decisively crippled. But rather than destroy it outright, the leaders of the nation shirked at the duty they had to defend the constitution, and allowed the party itself to remain. By failing to destroy the organizational base, and arresting moderate “yellow socialists” along side hardened reds, the noble cause of defending the Constitution would only serve to unite and further radicalize the forces that opposed the Republic. It served to turn men like Robert La Follete Sr., who as late as 1912 still considered himself a Republican as well as a Socialist-Social Democrat, into hardened Marxian Communists by 1920.[3]
Debs.jpg

Eugene Debs delivers an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, on June 4, 1916, to a crowd numbering in the thousands.

Excerpts from a speech by Eugene Debs, delivered in Canton, OH, on June 4, 1916[4]
No wonder Sam Johnson declared that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.

They would have you believe that the Socialist Labor Party consists in the main of disloyalists and traitors. It is true in a sense not at all to their discredit. We frankly admit that we are disloyalists and traitors to the real traitors of this nation; to the gang that on the Pacific coast are trying to hang Tom Mooney and Warren Billings in spite of their well-known innocence and the protest of practically the whole civilized world.

...Every solitary one of these aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot! What false pretense! These autocrats, these tyrants, these red-handed robbers and murderers, the “patriots,” while the men who have the courage to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited victims—they are the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight.

...The Man of Galilee, the Carpenter, the workingman who became the revolutionary agitator of his day soon found himself to be an undesirable citizen in the eyes of the ruling knaves and they had him crucified. And now their lineal descendants say of Scott Nearing, “He is preaching false economics. We cannot crucify him as we did his elder brother but we can deprive him of employment and so cut off his income and starve him to death or into submission. We will not only discharge him but place his name upon the blacklist and make it impossible for him to earn a living. He is a dangerous man for he is teaching the truth and opening the eyes of the people.” And the truth, oh, the truth has always been unpalatable and intolerable to the class who live out of the sweat and misery of the working class.

Max Eastman has been indicted and his paper suppressed, just as the papers with which I have been connected have all been suppressed. What a wonderful compliment they pay us! They are afraid that we may mislead and contaminate you. You are their wards; they are your guardians and they know what is best for you to read and hear and know. They are bound to see to it that our vicious doctrines do not reach your ears. And so in our great democracy, under our free institutions, they flatter our press by suppression; and they ignorantly imagine that they have silenced revolutionary propaganda in the United States. What an awful mistake they make for our benefit! As a matter of justice to them we should respond with resolutions of thanks and gratitude. Thousands of people who had never before heard of our papers are now inquiring for and insisting upon seeing them. They have succeeded only in arousing curiosity in our literature and propaganda. And woe to him who reads Socialist literature from curiosity! He is surely a goner. I have known of a thousand experiments but never one that failed.

...Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.
Yours not to reason why;
Yours but to do and die.​
That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.
iww_demonstration_ny_1914.jpg

A familiar scene: the American section of the IWW, the International Workers' Solidarity Union, organizes an anti-war protest

[FONT=Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times New Roman, serif]Excerpt from Alan Smithy, [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times New Roman, serif]The Twilight of the Law: The Legal Degeneration of the Old Republic [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times New Roman, serif](Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975)[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times New Roman, serif][5][/FONT]
In 1916, Charles Schenck was General Secretary of the Socialist Labor Party of America. As part of his political duties, Schenck was responsible for printing distributing and mailing party literature, in this case, leaflets advocating that American proletarians refuse to submit to conscription to fight in the First World War. Because of its principled opposition to the First World War, the party had found unprecedented growth, tapping into a powerful popular discontent with what was viewed as an imperialist war.

For exercising what he believed to be his constitutional right right, protected by the First Amendment of the 1787 Constitution, Schenck was indicted and convicted under the Espionage Act of 1915.[6] Upon appeal, the case made itself all the way to the Supreme Court. It is here that the eminent Justices of the Supreme Court stepped into the breach, not to protect the rights of a citizen of the United States, but to affirm evermore that war is the health of the state. The case of Schenck v. United States, 249U.S 47 (1917), represents a torturous legal opinion that failed to articulate a credible standard in determining the free speech protections enjoyed by residents of the United States.

The “Clear and Present Danger” test put forth by Schenck was never applied in contemporary or subsequent jurisprudence.[7] The “Bad Tendency” test put forth by the subsequent case Eugene Debs v. United States, 249 US 211 (1917), gave even less protection to free speech. The overturn of precedent in mere months undermines the credibility of the Court's implied position as an impartial arbiter of the law. As the legal logic of the Schenck case will show, maintaining the conviction and punishment and dissenters was a higher priority than the consistent application of the Court's own legal standards.
In Schenck, the esteemed so-called liberal Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes freely admitted that “in ordinary times” Schenck would have been perfectly within his rights in saying all that was said in the pamphlets he distributed, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1917).

It is here that Holmes utters the famous analogy, that “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Thus begins the false dilemma, expertly crafted to nullify the right of political speech whenever the state has declared an emergency, wartime or otherwise.
However, Holmes paints us a picture, not of a man expressing his dissatisfaction at a nation being ram-rodded into a war it had no stake in, but rather of bomb-throwing anarchist; a menace to society whose words are weapons against the state. True, Holmes lays out a fairly succinct and clear standard. As he writes, “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” What “substantive evil” might there be in this case that we should so devoutly wish that Congress use all the majesty and might of the state to prevent? Holmes does not elaborate beyond the obstruction of recruitment into the armed forces. Truly a great evil that Schenck might dissuade people from being sent off to by truckload to die in the mud of northern France in a war that was being waged for economic interests.

It is quite telling that Holmes offers no concrete example in the Opinion of the Court as to what way the exercise of Schenck's political speech to oppose a war that was absolutely lethal to working class soldiers who had no interest in fighting and dying in it. The United States was not under the threat of invasion. To the extent that the United States was directly threatened came only from the sinking of American merchantmen at sea—merchantmen who were shipping war material to Great Britain flying under the flag of Mexico, a supposedly neutral country, in direct violation of the laws of war. It is simply taken, ipso facto, that to dissent in time of war constitutes a seditious crime against the state. This was a total violation of the Court's assumed role as a guardian and fair arbiter of the law.

It was during times of war that the fundamental liberties protected by the Bill of Rights were needed the most. The text of the First Amendment stated very plainly that “Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” It made absolutely no mention that these rights only apply in peacetime. It did not say that speech is free unless it is speech that is dangerous to the state.

In the total absence of precedent, the Court set out in the midst of the First World War, not to impartially interpret the law, not to protect the rights of the citizenry; but rather to find what ever rationalization possible to ensure that the enemies of the state were punished. The Court applied two separate standards in the three largest cases it sees of this type, all within a single year. The clear chilling effect upon free speech is plain to see. In the case of Debs v. United States, the plaintiff, Eugene Debs, then four time Socialist Labor Party candidate for president, had very carefully tailored his speech to avoid prosecution under the Espionage Act.It was to no avail. The so-called liberal Holmes did his patriotic duty, and found Debs guilty of intending to obstruct recruitment on the flimsiest of grounds, 249 U.S. 211, 212-4 (1917).

There can be no doubt that the Court had no lofty minded goals in its conduct of the free speech trials. The standard of “clear and present danger” put forth in Schenck was articulated in bad faith, inconsistently applied, and then unceremoniously abandoned the moment it was no longer useful in upholding the convictions of enemies of the state. It was not as though the facts of the case were not properly understood by the Court. The facts themselves were irrelevant in the face of the necessity of protecting the state's use of terror against dissidents. Schenck and the related cases were not just bad law; they represent a total abdication by the Court and thus of the rule of law itself to the political class and the state.

The Court fulfilled its most basic, never admitted role: perpetuating the state and the class that controls it. Holmes
et al. did their patriotic duty to the Fatherland in clear violation of their duty to the rule of law. Perhaps what is most illustrative of these cases and the abject failure of the rule of law is that they have proven it does not matter if the Emperor has no clothes. In the very speech that resulted in his conviction, Debs noted that “Every single one of these aristocratic conspirators and would be murderers declares himself to be an arch-patriot.” It was not just the political branches of government that were guilty of betraying the public to serve narrow class interests. The Supreme Court made itself a willing accomplice as well.
The War on the Front

It was a badly hidden secret that all the various armies on the Western Front were in bad shape by 1916. The front-line divisions of all of the belligerents had been ground into dust months ago; the French Army held on with poorly trained reservists and new call-ups. The British Army's entire professional core was gone; either dead or incapacitated or watered down to provide NCOs for the waves of the recently conscripted. The American Army faired no better. The professional core had been pulverized, and while the new waves of conscripts were better equipped with machine guns and artillery than they had in 1915, morale had plummetted.

To help bridge the gap between the naval aviators and army pilots fighting in France, the combined air groups that had limped through 1915 were sheered off, and formed into a separate, independent Air Force by May of 1916.

That same month, the French Army began its costly attempt to breakout from the fortress town of Verdun. The German Heer, predictably, gave ground stubbornly and at great cost to the French. The German commanders, having lost the initiative in the West, were determined to wage a battle of attrition against the Entente.

The main action of the year, however, would be the bloodiest single battle of the war: the Somme. On June 1, the American and French armies began a joint offensive, supported by the largest artillery bombardment yet seen. It would not be enough. While the American and French units were better equipped with artillery and ammunition, they lacked a sufficient number of heavy guns to destroy the well prepared German bunkers. Further, the gunners lacked sufficient accuracy to drop shells to maximum effect on the front.

In spite of an average of fifty tonnes of explosives and shrapnel being dropped on each kilometer of front, many of the frontline soldiers survived the barrage in their deep dug-outs, and savaged the infantry in no-man's-land as soon as the barrage lifted. In spite of the outright failures of the initial attacks, the assaults continued until November, with the Heer giving ground slowly and at great cost.

In late July, the British Army under General Haig joined the battle on the northern flank, hoping to provide the extra push necessary to collapse the German defenses. Unfortunately for the Entente, the British proved no more effective then their American or French allies, and were similarly savaged. While the British Army fielded its wonder weapon, the tank, in September, this proved to be entirely underwhelming, and had very little effect on the outcome of the battle. Many of the tanks broke down before they reached the starting line, and those that did begin the assault could not sustain the offensive. But, in spite of this, the tank proved to be an effective terror weapon, and the proof of concept had been made.
Both the American and French armies soon formed their own tank corps. However, the bodies continued to pile up at the Somme. By the time the offensives ceased in early November, there were over 900,000 casualties for the Entente, and perhaps 600,000 for the Germans. Little more than 13 km at the deepest penetration, the Somme was a catastrophic debacle. However, the German army could little afford the causalities either. The Somme truly represented the attritional phase the war had entered.

The State of Exception on the Home Front

By September, it was abundantly clear to the War Cabinet that the political costs of the war had become astronomical. The upcoming general election would likely result in a disastrous political defeat for the National Unity Government. With the continuing bloody nose at the Somme, the debacle at Jutland, and the seething unrest at home, the government was faced with politically catastrophic consequences.

Thus Wilson did what had been previously unthinkable: dozens of opposition Congressional candidates were arrested and held without trial by federal and state police. Patriotic citizen groups brutalized Socialist Labor Party gatherings, and attempted to suppress the vote in November. And the truly unheard of happened: Democrats and Republicans did not stand for election against each other.

Such brutal, unconstitutional exercises of power were justified, as always, to defend the Constitution and the state against a clear and present danger.

However, as always, there was skullduggery afoot, even within the National Unity government. President Taft declined Wilson's proposal that he run for a third term as president. In a seeming gesture of goodwill, Taft instead offered for the Republican Party to not run a candidate in the 1916 election, and instead back prominent Democrat Thomas R. Marshall on a unity ticket, with a Republican as his running mate.

While the resulting deals would give the Democratic Party its first taste of power in ages, it would also place the political cost of the war firmly at the feet of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party would quickly capitalize on this after the conclusion of the war, victorious or otherwise, and place the entire blame for the war on the Democrats.

General Election, 1916
Presidential Results

Presidential candidate
_____Party_______________Popular Vote_____Percentage______Electoral Count

Thomas R. Marshall________Democratic Party______15,650,045_______65.92%________515

Allen L. Benson____________Socialist Labor Party___8,090,135________34.08%________20

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Map courtesy of Jackson

Congressional Results

House of Representatives_________Seats________Change

Republican Party
_______________190__________-45

Democratic Party_______________182__________+22

Socialist Labor Party____________63___________+23

U.S. Senate_____________________Seats________Change

Republican Party________________47___________-2

Democratic Party
________________41___________-3

Socialist Labor Party_____________8____________+8

  1. This, my friends, is called irony
  2. The Irish Missile Crisis was the outcome of geo-political manueverings by Premier Nixon to change the balance of terror in Cold War to American favor.
  3. I think the author's ideological axe-to-grind is pretty clear here.
  4. Speech delivered in IOTL, June 16, 1918, to similar effect.
  5. This article is a fictionalized version of an essay I wrote for a Constitutional Law class. The parameters of the cases have been essentially just shifted two years prior ITTL. However, I will provide some relevant citations of the OTL case for further reading.
  6. USC 18, Pt 1, Ch 37. Specifically, IOTL Schenck was convicted for “causing and attempting to cause insubordination, &c., in the military and naval forces...and to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States...” while in a time of war. See Schenck v. United States, 249 US 47, 48-9 (1919).
  7. IOTL, See Debs v. United States, 249 US 211 (1919) and Abrams v. United States, 250 US 616 (1919). Notably, these cases also involved Socialist Party politicians being convicted for speaking out against the war.
 
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Nineteen-Seventeen: The Year of Disasters

Excerpt from E.E. Schattschneider, “Party Government in Crisis” in American Political Science Review, Vol. 32, No. 1, February 1938.
Predictably, the rise of the Socialist Labor Party as a third force in American party politics created dramatic consequences for party-government in the Congress. The work of previous theorists of the party in government demonstrated the effects of certain facets of the revolution in party politics more than adequately. Notably, the work of Fenwick et al. have theorized the enormous upheavals that the existence of three parties in Congress (particularly the House) have caused in the American constitutional system. Demonstrably, the existence of a sharply defined separation of powers within the government was a system that reflected the strongly non-partisan preferences of Founders such as Washington and Madison, and has adapted poorly to a regime of two powerful political organizations competing for control of the apparatus of government.

...Presidential government, while hindered by the existence of political organizations independent of the formal positions and councils of government, nonetheless could still function even with the consequences of divided party authority and potential divided government. As Representative Clark noted, while the government could still function being pulled in two separate directions, the addition of a third independent force made such functions impossible.

...However, the resulting crisis in party government between 1908 and 1920 could not be explained solely in terms of constitutional factors of separation of powers. As we must understand, in seeming paradox, party government does not just form within the councils and halls of government. The party is larger than its members within the government, and as will be demonstrated with reference to the specific cases of the 1917 New York City Mayoral election, the characteristics of the party and the form its membership takes can have drastic consequences upon the performance of the party in government.

...1917 saw the first eclipse of the Tammany Hall machine in New York politics. As was demonstrated, Socialist Labor's ties to both organized labor and a large pool of enrolled members to the party eroded traditional dominance of the political machine’s system of organized legal corruption. The Socialists and the unions provided the same services to their members that the machines did; they offered opportunities for gainful employment, helped cover rent shortfalls for party workers, offered legal services to members and medical care to injured workers. But more importantly, the party’s membership rolls enabled it to mobilize its electorate in much the same way as the Tammany Hall machine. However, it did so without resort to the totality of legal corruption of the machine, and the egalitarian drives of its leaders created effective political organizations more of the vein of a fraternal order than of a cloistered, highly stratified secret society. Morris Hilquit’s move into the mayor’s mansion on January 1st, 1918, was the first blow in the final death knell of machine politics in the former United States.
President Thomas R. Marshall's Cabinet

Vice-President: Charles Evans Hughes (R-NY)
First Secretary: Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
Deputy First Secretary: James Mann (R-IL)
Secretary of State: Robert Lansing (D-NY)
Secretary of Treasury: Joseoph Fordney (R-MI)
Secretary of War: Leonard Wood (R-MA)
Attorney General: Thomas W. Gregory (D-TX)
Postmaster General: Albert S. Burelson (D-TX)
Secretary of the Navy: Theodore Roosevelt (I-NY)
Secretary of the Interior: Knute Nelson (R-MN)
Secretary of Agriculture: Gilbert N. Haugen (R-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Joshua W. Alexander (D-MO)
Secretary of Industrial Coordination: William S. Vare (R-PA)
Leader of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-MO)
Senate Majority Leader: Jacob H. Gallagher (R-NH)

The Russian Revolution

The day after Thomas Marshall was inaugurated as President of the United States, workers at the Pulitov factory, Petrograd's largest industrial plant, announced a wildcat strike. While there were limited clashes with Tsarist forces, there were few industries on the opening day. The strikers were fired, some shops closed, and arrests were made at the plant. However, the strike continued to fester.

By the 7th, a series of meeting that had originally been held for International Women's Day quickly evolved into economic and political gatherings. Demonstrations were organized to demand bread, which quickly spread among the factories. The strikes themselves grew, and by the 10th, virtually every industrial enterprise in Petrograd had been shut down, along with most commercial and service enterprises. The general strike brought together industrial workers, white-collar professionals, students and teachers. The red banners were flying.


Close to two-hundred thousand soldiers were mobilized by the Tsar to quell the uprising. However, they were poorly trained, with high numbers of injured and sick within the ranks. At best, some ten thousand could be counted as reliable, but even they were reluctant to put down the riots. By the 11th, they began to mutiny en masse.

With the bulk of the Petrograd garrison mutinying, and the city virtually under the control of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, representing the various worker councils and factory committees set up in the revolt, the beating heart of the Tsarist empire was gone. On March 15th, Tsar Nikolay II abdicated the throne to his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich.[1] The Grand Duke wisely declined the crown.

The following day, there was a spirit of elation all over Petrograd. A provisional government was announced, representing a diverse liberal coalition, and chaired by Prince Georgy Lvov, a liberal aristocrat and member of the Kadets[2]. However, the Provisional Government would face competition from the Petrograd Soviet, which chiefly involved the industrial workers and the political left.

For now, they cooperated, but the Provisional Government was forced to concede de facto supremacy to the Petrograd Soviet, which held democratic legitimacy, while the Provisional Government was a self-selected committee from the former Duma. For now, the Russian war effort continued mostly unabaded against the German Reich, but it did ease some political issues for the Entente, especially for the American war government. President Marshall quickly recognized the Provisional Government, and welcomed the transition to democracy in the Russian Empire. These events would later be known as the February Revolution in Russia.[3]

The Nivelle Offensive


In late 1916, French Marshal Joffre was replaced by General Robert Nivelle as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. Nivelle immediately put forward a bold plan for combined offensive. The British Army, supplemented by American divisions, would begin an attack near Arras in early April as a diversion. Meanwhile, the French Army, and the bulk of the American Expeditionary Force would prepare for an attack at Chemin des Dames ridge.

Nivelle's plan was bold and foolhardy. He expected a breakthrough and encirclement of the German Army within 48 hours, followed by a quick end of the war. For the offensive, the Entente assembled an immense force of nearly one and a half million men, close to 8,000 guns and three-hundred-fifty tanks.

The British offensive at Arras began on April 3rd. The Entente committed four armies to the offensive: the British First, third and Fifth Armies, and the American Third Army. Since October of the year before, the British Royal Engineers had been working underground, digging tunnels in the chalky soil around Arras. Besides logistical tunnels, to bring troops and ammunition to the front safely, and allow the safe evacuation of casualties, the Royal Engineers also dug assault tunnels, stopping a few meters short of the German lines to be blown on Zero-Day. In addition, mines were laid under the front-line, to be blown during the assault.

For the assault itself, a “creeping barrage” was planned, protecting attacking troops with a veil of artillery fire advancing one hundred meters ahead of the advance.
Counter-battery fire was planned, and the crews drilled diligently in the weeks prior to make the most of the assault. On Zero-Day, over 80% of German heavy guns in the sector were neutralized.

Z-day proceeded surprisingly well. By chance, the sudden snow-storm of the day came at the assaulting troop's backs, blinding the German defenders with sleet. Many were caught unaware, captured half-dressed coming out of their dugouts.
By the standards of the Western front, the gains of the first two days were nothing short of spectacular. A great deal of ground was gained for relatively few casualties and a number of strategically significant points were captured, notably Vimy Ridge. Additionally, the offensive succeeded in drawing German troops away from the French offensive in the Aisne sector.

The assault at Chemin des Dames, however, proved to be much more difficult. Beginning on April 1
3th, twenty-seven divisions from the French Fifth and Sixth Armies and the American First Army attacked the German line along an 80 km stretch from Soissons to Reims. Following a massive, but ineffective artillery barrage, French and American infantry, supported by French Schneider CA1 and American copies of the British Mark IV tank, crossed no-man's-land to face an average of one machine-gun every ten meters. German troops, safe in the underground quarries of the region, emerged to savage the attackers.

Coupled with an ineffective creeping barrage, and the poor showing of the French CA1 tanks, and the first day of th e assault was near disastrous. On the first day of battle, the French suffered close to 40,000 casualties and lost over one hundred tanks. The Americans faired slightly better, suffering twelve thousand casualties and the loss of twenty tanks to enemy fire.

The British faced their own share of setbacks in the week following the French offensive as the Aisne. German counterattacks wore down the British attackers, and the Franco-American attack only made ground through sheer weight and dogged determination. Thanks to the tankers of the American Tank Corps, and the dogged determination of the French and American infantry, the offensive proceeded.

Finally, on April 19th, the French and American troops achieved a breakthrough at Chemin de Dames. The British army continued to push foward steadily, and in spite of setbacks, the Entente pushed forward to the planned linkup at Hirson, near the Belgian border.

The luck was not to last. The continued artillery bombardments have leveled literally everything above ground on the axis of advance, and transformed the terrain into a cratered moonscape. The logistical problem would prove to be insurmountable. Moving ammunition and food to the front became nearly impossible in the conditions created by trench warfare. Thanks to this, and German tactical poise, the British and French assaults both ground to a halt by the 1st of May.

Men continued to be fed into the meat-grinder, in one last reckless hope of finishing the operation. The German army has already evacuated its forward positions, rendering the threat of encirclement moot. Nivelle ended the offensive on May 25th, giving the Entente a victory, though a Pyhrric one at that.

Victory would cost the Entente over seven hundred thousand casualties, compared to little over three-hundred-fifty thousand casualties for the German Army. The victory was so costly that mutiny began in the French Army, and the American Army found itself perilously close to mutiny.

WesternFront1917.png

Results of the Nivelle offensive. Dotted line = furthest extent of Entente advance. Blue line = lines at the close of the battle

The October Revolution[4]

The young Russian Republic was in great social, political and economic crisis from the moment of its birth. Disorder in industry and transport continued to increase, and gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over forty percent from what it had been in 1916. Faced with a war it could not win, the economy also was on the verge of total collapse, with mass unemployment in the Urals, the Donbas and other industrial regions, massively increased cost of living, and the depression of real wages by almost 50 percent.

In September and October 1917, there were strikes by the Moscow and Petrograd workers, the miners of the Donbas, the metalworkers of the Urals, the oil workers of Baku, the textile workers of the Central Industrial Region, and the railroad workers on 44 different railway lines. In these months alone more than a million workers took part in mass strike action. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution.

The Provisional Government's authority continued to erode, especially after the Kornilov Affair. Facing an attempted coup, only the armies own poor morale, and the belligerence of the forces under the control of the Petrograd Soviet saved the Provisional Government during the August affair. Bolshevik popularity soared over the affair, and Vladimir Lenin continued to gain influence within the party.

On the 23rd of October, the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) voted 10-2 in favor of a resolution saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe". It became clear that it would only be a matter of time before the Provisional Government fell, whether to reaction or revolution.

The Bolshevik coup began in the early hours of the morning of November 6th. Bolshevik operatives quickly took control of all major government offices and centers of power in Petrograd without firing a shot. At 9:45 p.m., Vladimir Lenin launched an assault upon the Winter Palace, guarded only by a few Cossacks, military cadets, and a Women's Battalion. It was taken at about 2 a.m., bloodlessly, and the tattered remnants of the Provisional Government were soon arrested.

The following day, on the floor of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Bolshevik leaders announced a decree transferring all powers to the Congress of Soviets. The resolution was ratified, with a strong majority of around 400 of the Congress' 670 elected delegates. While the Bolsheviks and the Left faction of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (a peasant left-wing nationalist party) had supported the overthrow, the Right faction of the SRs and the Mensheviks had opposed it, charging that the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power. They soon walked out, effectively handing power to the Bolsheviks. As they left, Leon Trotsky taunted them “Go out where you belong—into the ash heap of history.”

On November 8th, the Congress of Soviets elected a Council of People's Commissars to serve as the basis of Soviet government until a Constituent Assembly could be assembled to ratify a new constitution. The Revolution would be a disaster for the Entente. The new government of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic made its intention to withdraw from the war abundantly clear.

---

  1. Russian names henceforth shall be transliterated from Russian, and not anglicized. Hence, Tsar Nicholas II shall be referred to as Nikolay, etc.
  2. Constitutional Democratic Party
  3. The dating confusion comes from the fact that the Russian Empire still used the Julian Calendar in 1917. Thanks to an error in Julius Caesar's math, the Julian Calendar loses three days every four-hundred years, a discrepancy that had added up to 13 days by the year 1900.
  4. The events occurred in November according to the Gregorian Calendar.
 
Nineteen-Eighteen: A Year Draped in Red

Excerpt from Howard Zinn, Taking City Hall: The Growth of Workers' Power in New York City, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1971)
The morning of January 1, 1918, was bitterly cold. The freezing rain, however, could not contain the boiling passion in the city's populace that day. Today would be a day of two mayors, and all of the city would soon be up in arms.

The “official” mayor-elect, John Hylan, stood on the steps of City Hall that morning, ready to take the oath of office. The forces of the establishment had assembled throughout the city. The New York Police Department moved quickly, arresting well known figures in the local labor movement during the early hours of the morning. Business as usual would be enforced by the police truncheon, and the NYPD acted under strict orders to quash any open political dissent. They were not prepared for the storm that was to come.

A police strong-arm squad arrived at Hilquit's residence in Manhattan's lower east side, with a warrant for his arrest under New York's “criminal syndicalism” laws. The squad instead met with an armed group of local Jewish workers. After a tense stand off, the police backed down. Word spread quickly of the crackdown and the reactionary's coup against Hilquit.
The local Socialist Labor Party organization was stunned; no one had ever imagined that even with the class war as tense as it had been, that the establishment would act so brazenly against democracy in its homeland. Hilquit had won 48 percent of the popular vote in New York City to Hylan's mere 30 percent.

But while the party was paralyzed with indecision, the workers of New York began taking matters into their own hands. As word spread, largely by word of mouth due to the police raids on local labor press early that morning, large throngs of citizens walked out in protest, forming spontaneous marches and strike committees.

Even the most devoutly left-wing sections of the SLP found themselves playing catch up from day one. By January 4, the barricades were up all across the city. The call for general strike had gone out, and had been quickly answered. Veterans of the Spanish-American War, as well as discharged soldiers of the current conflict took up arms, raiding National Guard storehouses and forming disciplined workers' militias to battle the police attempting to crackdown on the uprising.

The revolt brought spontaneous occupations in workplaces and factories all cross the city. Emboldened by news of the revolution in Russia, they formed factory committees to manage occupied resources to sustain the general strike. In Manhattan and the industrial heart of Brooklyn, workers formed soviets, and in their wards.

The police did their duty to the class regime they had pledged to, but only barely. Their hearts were not in the conflict, and quite often, the workers were simply better organized and armed than they were. They gave ground quickly, and clashes between the red militias and the police tended to have few casualties. On the 8th, the order went out to NYPD units to evacuate Manhattan island, and abandon their redoubts on Wall Street and the Upper East Side. The order included the forcible evacuation of upper class residents and VIPs whenever possible even at the expense of their personal property.

It was carried out in a general panic, and as word spread among upper class residents in areas that remained unoccupied by workers' militias, fears of bloody retribution by the proles spread. Panicked bourgeois citizens crowded the streets and streamed to the bridges and ferries off the island. But they found, in most cases, that there was no escape. The dockworkers and sailors had taken up the red flag as well, and under the authority of the Manhattan Revolutionary Central Committee formed the previous day, they ordered those attempting to flee back to their homes or to the nearest refugee areas.

By the 10th, the NYPD's withdrawal from Manhattan had been complete, though at considerable cost. Workers militias successfully encircled many police and auxiliary units during the withdrawal, using their control of the subway and rail systems to efficiently deliver militia units much faster than police units could move through streets blocked by abandoned vehicles, wagons and barricades.

From here, the crisis in New York quickly assumed a national character. Though Vice-President Charles E. Hughes had strongly protested in January 11th's emergency cabinet meeting on the efficacy of suppressing the revolt, and urged President Marshall and First Secretary Wilson to open a dialog with Hilquit, now the president of the New York Commune, he was ultimately overruled. Marshall instead ordered a mobilization of the New York National Guard, countermanding the Governor, who had feared further political blowback. The National Guard would be placed under federal control, and the insurrection would be put down swiftly and brutally to ensure war materiel would continue to flow from New York's ports to the front in France.

The resulting conflagration nearly destroyed the United States.
Hillquit-morris-2.jpg

Morris Hilquit, Mayor-elect of New York City
garment%20strikers%20ny.gif
socialists-at-their-may-day-celebration-in-union-square-new-york-1933.jpg

(Left)Lady garment workers on strike during the Hylan-Hilquit Affair (Right) The NYC soviet congress meets in Union Square

Excerpts from C. Wright Mills, “Reflections on the Bienno Rosso: Fifty Years Later” in The Daily Worker, May 1, 1968.
You've head this before, probably more than once, in history classes or on PBS specials. Nevertheless, it is true. The Bienno Rosso[1] is the defining period of American revolutionary socialism, and it shaped the character of our national political consciousness ever since.

I am too young to remember the events myself, but I remember hearing about it constantly in my youth. Even in Texas, a relative side show to the struggles between 1918 and 1920, the revolutionary Wobbly spirit had been strong among local workers. Strong enough that civic life in Dallas for working class was centered overwhelmingly around the union hall and the party. The grocer, the local plumber, the mechanic who fixed your heater; they'd were all reds, and they could all tell you exactly what they were doing when they heard about the mobilization of the National Guard to suppress the New York Commune.

Even my father, born the son of decently affluent middle class parents, found himself becoming a red that year. As he explained it to me when I was sixteen and first joining the YCL, he just couldn't find any faith in government when it was mobilizing soldiers to kill people standing up for their basic right to elect their own leaders.

...Millions of people, who otherwise might never had become revolutionaries, ended up becoming precisely that because they watched their government and constitutional system essentially commit suicide. Many others became violent reactionaries while the political center slowly bled to death following the Bienno Rosso. It's death may not have been immediate, but it should be clear: the Revolution was simply the second act of a play that had begun fourteen years earlier. The soviets, workers' militias, factory committees and other revolutionary institutions had been suppressed, but they had not been defeated. They revived, stronger than ever, during the next economic crisis, and the mortal wound that Thomas Marshall placed in the heart of American capitalism finally proved fatal.
Red flags, red flags everywhere

The National Executive of the Socialist Labor Party made its first official statement on the Hylan-Hilquit Affair on the 13th of January, shortly after the official announcements from the Cabinet on martial law in New York. They denounced the president's mobilization of the National Guard as an abuse of power “more befitting a Prussian Junker than a leader of the American Republic,” and denounced the assumption of further emergency powers by the government to “wage war against the American proletariat.”

Though strong in its condemnation, the party wished to avoid offering any course of action, lest it be targeted for further official repression. The IWSU's central executive council was not so reserved. The union, finally having got it's ass in gear, announced a nationwide general strike.

Abandoning it's previous hostile anti-war rhetoric, the unions made clear that the general strike was against the tyrant Marshall and the dictatorial powers being used on the home front.

Tone didn't matter, and the government's counterattack treated all such behavior as treasonous. Following the previous days' cabinet reshuffle, on the 15th, the new Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer announced arrest warrants for leaders of the SLP and IWSU.[2] The charges being leveled were a grave escalation of previous repressions. Participation in the general strike would be regarded by the Justice Department as treason.

The US Marshals and US Secret Service quickly made good on the Attorney-General's promise. Socialist Labor MCs were arrested and detained without habeas corpus. While the proletarian organizations were already “underground,” a number of leaders of IWSU were arrested and formally charged with treason, including “Big Bill” Haywood, and Joe Hill.

If anything, the problems were only made worse. Rail workers stopped nearly all transcontinental rail traffic. Dockworkers refused to load ships, especially those bound for France or Great Britain. Factories making war materiel were occupied, and the arsenals they were producing were seized and distributed to workers militias.

They strikers were not battling with any clear revolutionary purpose in mind. Indeed, most felt, quite correctly, that a full revolution would only lead to disaster. Instead, they played a dangerous gamble, further threatening the war effort to bring the government to the negotiation table, and arouse the senses of cooler heads within the bourgeois government.

On February 1, they got their windfall. The United States Supreme Court issued an injunction on the federal government, requiring the immediate release of MCs being held in violation of their congressional immunity. Following the government's reluctant compliance, the SLP's delegation in the House of Representatives began negotiations, behind closed doors, with backbenchers from the Republican Party to begin a no-confidence motion on the Wilson government, and install a replacement that would negotiate an end to the general strike

Many Republicans, and northern Democrats were alarmed, both at the government's repressive policies, and how they seemed to only spread revolutionary discontent, understood the need to bring the situation back under control. The National Guard's attempts to bring New York City back to heel had all failed by February 6, and the whole of the City, as well as Long Island, were more or less under the control of the New York Commune. Chicago's revolutionary commune had taken over the city, as had the strike committees in Baltimore, Boston, Butte, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Toledo. The rot was spreading, with no end in sight.

At the opening of the emergency session on Monday, February 11, self-styled “independent Republican” Theodore Roosevelt (I-NY) presented a motion of no-confidence on the House floor as part of the morning's procedural issues. The motion presented a new cabinet, negotiated hastily that weekend, and included official censure of the current government for it's failure to resolve the matter of the nation being afflicted by a plague of red flags. While the floor-leadership tried to block the vote, the rules made this feat impossible, and after the lunch recess, the motion was presented again with the signatures of a full majority of MCs present. Wilson's government fell in the resulting vote 255-100. As a stroke of genius, the Constitution's requirement for motions of no-confidence to be constructive (i.e., propose a new cabinet) was subverted by naming placeholder candidates, many of whom would hold the office only on paper, being replaced by a permanent successor before the caretaker ministry's term ended.[3]

Dutifully, the Cabinet presented their resignations, and President Marshall accepted the setback as best he could. By the end of the month, the new Cabinet was seated, and formal negotiations began to end the general strike. As part of the no-confidence deal, the SLP convinced the unions to suspend all activities that threatened the transfer of war materiel. The crisis in New York and other communes was settled with unilateral recognition, in exchange for an end to all strike activity and the disbanding of all workers' militias.

The Department of Justice, in exchange, suspended it's treason prosecution, and rescinded orders that had effectively made the IWSU and the SLP into outlaw institutions. However, the state of exception in itself did not end.

iwwpicnic.jpg

SLP/IWSU recruitment drive during the heyday of the Seattle Commune, March 1918

Brest-Litovsk

On January 21, 1918, the governments of the Central Powers and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic agreed to terms for peace on the Eastern Front. The Central Powers, led in the negotiations by the German Reich's foreign secretary Richard von Kühlmann, entered the negotiation tables a month prior motivated by a pressing need to end hostilities in East, and shift those resources against the increasingly successful Western Entente.

Because of this, the Bolshevik delegation was able to bargain from a position of strength in spite of the fragility of its own position. The growing revolt of reactionaries and others discontented with the October Revolution at home gave the negotiations, led by foreign commissar Leon Trotsky, a certain urgency as well. The agreement hammered out over the month was not satisfactory to either party. The Bolsheviks were able to ensure a complete withdrawal of Central Power forces from territory of the former Russian Empire, at the cost of self-determination and official neutrality for the territories that would become Finland, Estonia, Lativa, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine.

There was much fanfare and toasting, lauding that the stalwartly conservative Central Powers and the revolutionary Bolsheviks came to a “historic agreement” for “peace and self-determination.” Such rhetoric, however, was nothing but a facade, concealing both parties cynical goals. Neither the Bolsheviks nor Germany ever intended to maintain the treaty permanently. As Trotsky himself would put it:
“I met with this sort of people for the first time. It is unnecessary to emphasize that I had no illusions about them. But I admit that I had expected the level to be higher. The impression of my first meeting could be summarized in the following statement: These people do not have a high estimation of their counterparts, but they also do not have a high estimation of themselves.”
These territories could be taken out of play, temporarily, while the Bolsheviks dealt with internal dissenters and the Germans fought the Entente to the peace table. Both still had clear designs on the ostensibly neutral buffer states carved from the Russian Empire. Ultimately, though, it was the Bolsheviks who gained the most in the end. In ten months, the German Reich would be forced to seek armistice and unfavorable peace terms with the Western Allies, resulting in the total dissolution of its imperial ambitions.

As German troops boarded trains for the Western Front, the Bolsheviks were already moving by proxy to fill the power vacuum. Native Bolsheviks made a strong presence in constituent assembly elections across the board. Friction between varying groups vying for control soon broke out into political violence and civil war.

Though Finland and the Baltic states were able to quickly counter native Reds and crush their insurrections, Byelorussia and Ukraine's civil wars were trending in favor of the Bolsheviks. In Byelorussia, the Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies dissolved the National Assembly in late February, and declared the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The uneasy alliance between dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries, and liberal reformers formed the Byelorussian National Republic in the western territories of the country, and set themselves to organizing a civil war against the Reds with whatever meager aid the Germans could spare.
The Russian SFSR “dutifully” supported self-determination of the Byelorussian people against the German puppet state squatting in the Pripyat Marshes and near the German border, and formed an alliance with the Byelorussian SSR, providing troops and aid.

Ukraine was in a more complicated situation. The Central Rada in Kiev had already been captured by a Bolshevik-Left SR alliance. But by the moment the Treaty was signed, Kiev and other Red controlled areas of the country found themselves under assault by a German supported cadre of Ukrainian Cossacks styling themselves the “Ukrainian State” (Ukrayins’ka derzhava), under the self-appointed Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, himself a former general in the Tsarist army.

Pavlo_Skoropadsky.jpg

Self-appointed Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, arch-reactionary monarch of Ukraine

Though the Hetmanate was looked upon quite widely by the workers and peasantry as a pint-sized pretender to Tsardom's glory, their regime was competent in administration and militarily successful, and succeeded in taking Kiev in March of 1918. The leadership of the Ukrainian People's Republic were forced to evacuate to Kharkiv, dependent on Russian aid for survival. The coup d'é[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]tat sparked a spontaneous uprising among Ukrainian peasants in the south-east, overthrowing the local Cossacks and declaring a “Free Territory” under anarchist principles. Black Ukraine and Red Ukraine soon found themselves allied against the common enemy, though their relationship, even in the early honeymoon era, was far from rosy. [/FONT]

Still, the “father figure” of the insurrection, Nestor Makhno, was welcoming of a Red-Black alliance against reaction, even while being quite skeptical of the Bolsheviks' intentions towards their allies once the Soviet Revolutionary War was through and the reactionaries crushed.[4]

Operation Michael and the Road to Armistice


On March 1, 1918, the German Heer played it's ace in the hole. Divisions surging from the Eastern Front supported a massive, simultaneous offensive thrust at the Allied lines from Cambrai to Aefthel. The Heer sunk all of its available resources, including considerable numbers of home produced and captured tanks, into breaking the Allied lines and forcing a peace settlement on favorable terms.

By any account, the initial breakthrough was nothing short of spectacular. The Germans concentrated their assaults in the American sectors of the front-lines. Already less-inclined to fight than their British and French compatriots, American soldiers were further disillusioned with the cause thanks to trouble back home and the utter bankruptcy for the justifications for their being in France. Coupled with the damaged logistical situation due to the mass strikes at the beginning of the Biennio Rosso, this made the American Expeditionary Force the weakest link in the chain. The Germans exploited this as ruthlessly as possible.

Marshal Pershing, interrupted from staff meeting in Paris, hurriedly rode to the front to manage the damage in the VII and IX Corps personally. In spite of his acumen, Pershing on more than one occasion found himself far too close to the fighting, and nearly encircled with his troops by German spearheads.

Nevertheless, the Americans, supported by British reserves, managed to rally quite gallantly, spurred on by a tough, battle-seasoned core of junior officers and NCOs, who stemmed the flagging morale in what later French and British historians would consider a “uniquely American manner”, repeating the same slogan near universally: “Hold the line, comrades. Make it through this, and be sure to save a bullet for our own generals.”[5]

This has euphemistically been referred to as a “constructive mutiny” by Red Army historians, with the thoroughly radicalized lower echelons of the army “finishing the job” that the brass and their robber baron masters started but were too incompetent to carry through. Though the normal chain of command would be restored by the end of the crisis, in those critical early moments the only thing keeping the AEF from erupting in total mutiny was the clear and present danger presented by the Germans, whose officers would quite gladly shoot any Red they found.

Still, the German “stormtrooper tactics” caught the whole front off-guard, with elite troops effectively infiltrating Allied positions and hitting supply depots while accurate, measured artillery bombardment suppressed the machine-guns and mortars of the defenders.

In all, the Germans advanced an average of 70 kilometers on the front in a little less than a month, before being halted and decisively reversed. By the time the lines returned to the pre-Michael positions in late May, the Germans and Allies both had lost near three-hundred thousand troops. The operation's brilliant early tactical successes came at an all too high of a price, and in the end, the Heer utterly failed to separate the Allied armies.
Bolstered by British reinforcements streaming from the closing of the Middle-Eastern Front, the Allies soon mounted their own riposte starting in June. With a core of hundreds of improved tanks, the British, French and American armies push forward. The massed tanks finally prove effective, punching effective holes in German lines, forcing the Heer into an orderly but demoralizing “advance in a rearward direction;” a fighting retreat that signals the death knell of the dreams for a favorable peace settlement.

By August, the whole of the Western Front is collapsing under it's own weight. General Eric von Ludendorf orders a total retreat to beyond the Belgian-French Border, fearing an imminent total collapse of the army in the field. The Allies halt their offensives in late August, after taking the much vaunted Hindenburg Line at the Belgian border. They are unable to sustain the logistics to even adequately feed frontline troops, let alone supply ammunition to machine-guns and artillery across the many kilometers of criss-crossing trenches, shell craters and mud in Northern France. For the first time since 1914, the guns fall silent.

The Kaiser forms a liberal government under Chancellor Max von Baden, and by early September sues for peace. Soon, mass mutinies begin in the German Army and Navy, and vast worker strikes break out in Germany, prompting the Kaiser to abdicate to live out a life in exile, joining his cousin and former foe Nicholas II in Sweden. An armistice agreement is soon reached, and negotiations for a peace treaty begin, with the German provisional government helmed by the SPD. The War to End All Wars Ends.

A footnote to the year: US Senate elections


Due to widespread class war and civil unrest, many state legislatures have returned to selecting their state's senators by legislative selection instead of popular vote, reversing the trend begun under the Populists.

Party____________Seats________Change


Republican__________50____________+3

Democratic__________25____________-16

Socialist Labor_______16____________+2

DFL________________7_____________+7[6]


1. “Two Red Years” in Italian.

2. Marshall's second cabinet:
Vice-President: Charles Evans Hughes (R-NY)
First Secretary: Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
Deputy First Secretary: James Mann (R-IL)
Secretary of State: Robert Lansing (D-NY)
Secretary of Treasury: Joseoph Fordney (R-MI)
Secretary of War: Leonard Wood (R-MA)
Attorney General: A. Mitchel Palmer (D-PA)
Postmaster General: Albert S. Burelson (D-TX)
Secretary of the Navy: Edwin Denby (R-MI)
Secretary of the Interior: Knute Nelson (R-MN)
Secretary of Agriculture: Gilbert N. Haugen (R-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Joshua W. Alexander (D-MO)
Secretary of Industrial Coordination: William S. Vare (R-PA)
Leader of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-MO)
Senate Majority Leader: Jacob H. Gallagher (R-NH)


3. Marshall's third cabinet, once the dust settled
Vice-President: Charles Evans Hughes (R-NY)
First Secretary: James Mann (R-IL)
Deputy First Secretary: Champ Clark (D-MO)
Secretary of State: Theodore Roosevelt (I-NY)
Secretary of Treasury: David F. Houston (D-NC)
Secretary of War: Leonard Wood (R-MA)
Attorney General: A. Mitchel Palmer (D-PA)
Postmaster General: Albert S. Burelson (D-TX)
Secretary of the Navy: Edwin Denby (R-MI)
Secretary of the Interior: Knute Nelson (R-MN)
Secretary of Agriculture: Gilbert N. Haugen (R-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Joshua W. Alexander (D-MO)
Secretary of Industrial Coordination: William S. Vare (R-PA)
Leader of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-MO)
Senate Majority Leader: Jacob H. Gallagher (R-NH)

4.
A more academically accepted name for the Russian Civil War, especially in Comintern nations.

5. A direct reference to the lyrics of "The Internationale"

6. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, formed in early 1919 by dissident Democrats chafing under the Bourbon dominance in the party. They're grouped separately here, because the split was real, though not formalized, by election time.

Next update: The Biennio Rosso, or No War But the Class War
 
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Nineteen-Nineteen: The Biennio Rosso
No War But the Class War

Excerpts from David McCullough, Soldier, Statesmen & Progressive: A Biography of Leonard Wood, (Topeka: Common Ground, 1985).

Leonard Wood, worn out from four years of public service as Secretary of War, delivered his resignation to the Cabinet and President Marshall on 30 March. Though he delivered a written statement of his intentions, he also delivered them orally at the Cabinet meeting that morning. He thanked his colleagues for the opportunity to serve his country, but felt that he had no more to give, now that the War in Europe had come to a close.

In hindsight, this could be easily seen as a somewhat opportunistic move. Demobilization would be coming soon, and being in government at the time would prove to be quite harmful to a man's political prospects. However, in light of Wood’s political activities in the following year, and examinations of his personal correspondence, instead we find a sort of bourgeois social patriotism guiding him. Upon returning to his Massachusetts estate early in June, Wood dispatched a number of telegrams and letters to important political figures in the state, including prominent leaders of the Boston Republican machine.

While the Battle of Boston during the Civil War and the subsequent looting has destroyed a large amount of his personal papers, there remains enough to provide a picture of his activities during the Biennio Rosso. In one letter he dispatched to the recently ousted former Governor of the state, Samuel W. McCall, Wood described his fears for the state of politics in the republic:
“The Socialists have on their banners the loathesome phrase ‘No war but the class war,’ and it seems like the current administration has been more than content to give that to them. With the War in Europe now concluded, there is nothing to distract citizens from the violence at home. Every act taken by the police or the National Guard at the behest of capital has only further deepened the dislocation in our union. Bringing the unionists to heel cannot be done by treating every American worker like a potential saboteur […] I know that you are a Christian man of great Progressive sympathies. This was made clear when you opposed the Party’s call for savage reprisals against bread rioters. You understand, as do I, that men who cannot give their children bread cannot be expected to remain civil. Socialism can only breed in circumstances where there is injustice and suffering. It is a mark of a Great Nation to make this possible for its citizens. Nations that fail succumb to revolution, as the Bourbon dynasty of France did. As the Romanov dynasty of Russia has more recently.
…Ultimately, Wood sought to strike a blow at the powerful establishment of the Republican Party. Either they would heed reason, and allow a new path to be taken in realigning the party, or they would be dragged kicking and screaming to their own salvation. Ultimately, it mattered little to Wood and his allies.

Excerpts from Eric Hobsbawn, ed., Harvest of Sorrow: The Social Dynamic of Demobilisation, (London: Routledge, 1970)

In the summer of 1919, amidst the chaos of the Biennio Rosso, a perfect storm of different factors hit the economy of the United States. War orders had abruptly dried up, and the stream of demobilized soldiers and government laborers soon entered the job market without any steady income. The economy, which had been running at full wartime mobilization for almost five years at this point, could not rapidly shift production towards consumer products. Consequently, many firms slipped into the red. Creditors found themselves in a crunch, while the sharp increase in interest rates by the Bank of the Republic drove a deflationary recession that sapped the vitality left in the economy.

The attempts to balance the books led only to further deflationary reactions such as mass firings. Labor, already in confrontation with capital, faced a sharp counterattack made possible by demobilized loyalist soldiers. The use of extralegal violence to solve labor disputes, and enforce the company’s dictates proved counterproductive. Radicalized American soldiers took their rifles and their military training to the picket lines in solidarity with their fellow workers. These armed bands of workers organized their own adjunct organization to the Solidarity trade union, dubbing themselves the Spartacus League. The Spartacists eventually became a paramilitary wing of the Socialist Labor Party, and they found themselves in numerous engagements, often bloody, with the police, Pinkerton thugs, or right-wing vigilante groups. They kept the peace in rough working class neighborhoods as well as during factory occupations and other industrial actions.

During that summer, a total of five million American workers were involved in factory occupations of various lengths, the average lasting approximately a month. The longest factory occupations turned into worker takeovers of abandoned factories, with the owners ultimately cutting their losses after finding that the mainly rural courts they had sought legal injunctions against the unions so they could place their assets in receivership would all too often steadfastly refuse to turn on their neighbors.

While there were notable victories in lumber milling and other small scale industries, on the whole most labor actions only ended up returning to a status quo ante bellum. Rather than acquiesce to the slashing of payrolls, most union locals with depleted strike funds would simply enforce what they euphemistically referred to as “alternate compliance.” In this form of mutual aid, the union would require all of its members to work fewer shifts, dividing the balance among workers who had been terminated. Union members or sympathizers in payroll would ensure that all accounts were settled. If that proved impossible, the union would re-balance the payroll itself.

Excerpts from Albert E. Kahn, Storming the Gates of Heaven: A History of the Comintern, (Cambridge, MA: Progress, 1962).

Amidst the din of the Soviet Revolutionary War, delegates from across the industrialized world meet in Moscow at the Kremlin’s Court of Justice. Though Allied blockade and intervention made travel difficult for the delegates to the Founding Congress of the Communist International, close to one hundred-twenty delegates arrived by mid-March. Lenin had hoped to begin the congress over a month earlier in Berlin, but with Freidrich Ebert’s SPD in the midst of a Thermidorean Reaction, this proved to be impossible. The hostility of the “moderate socialist” government in Germany was considered proof-positive of the necessity of third revolutionary international.

The warning time proved to be almost too little. In particular, the official delegates from the American Socialist Labor Party arrived several days late, and only a few unofficial delegates from British socialist and labour organizations were able to attend. With the congress’s limitations, it was initially decided to hold only a preparatory conference, to give invited organizations several more months to prepare for an official founding conference, but this decision was quickly reversed on Leon Trotsky’s insistence. Instead, important functions such as drafting rules and setting up permanent institutions within the international would be held off until the 2nd World Congress.

Due to the limited number of delegates and the largely ad hoc nature of the congress, the Founding Congress was largely limited to discussion and deliberation. The key topic of discussion was the necessity for revolutionary parties to reject bourgeois “democracy” for the dictatorship of the proletariat and soviet government.

Lenin.platten_%282%29.jpg

Bolshevik Leader Vladimir Lenin (Left) and Swiss Communist Fritz Platten (Right) at the Comintern Founding Congress

…The Comintern’s executive committee, led by Grigory Zinoviev, used the period following the first congress to aggressively promote a common strategy among communists across Europe and North America, albeit with very limited resources. Lenin’s estimation that the developed world was in the midst of a revolutionary upsurge essentially guided First Period Comintern policy. In particular, the de facto head of the Bolsheviks considered the events of the American Biennio Rosso to hold particularly great promise.

He sent an open letter to the Socialist Labor Party in June of 1919, praising the diligent internationalism of the party and its members. The trials faced in confrontation with the bourgeois state “are a refining fire, purifying your steel and tempering your party into a great revolutionary instrument.” Throughout the letter, he urged the American socialists to stay the course, with the hour of the revolution so near. While his highest hopes were dashed, the Americans’ resolute internationalism, and enduring strength of the revolutionary party earned them a position as the favored son among the communist parties.

The Soviet Revolutionary War: An Overview

At the beginning of 1919, the tempo of the war was shifting towards the Bolshevik’s favor. While the Right-SRs and the Mensheviks still remained defiant to the Soviet government from their bases of power in Central Asia and the Caucasus respectively, Lenin’s regime had successfully ensured that the Left faction of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party would fold into the Bolsheviks. With decisive control of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, the party promulgated a new constitution with popular legitimacy.

In the field, the reactionary Whites still controlled nearly all of Siberia, but all of their attempts to take Vladivostok failed. Since the Bolsheviks still controlled Archangelsk, and there was no line of communication from British-controlled Murmansk to any of the White strongholds, the reactionaries could not count on much in the way of foreign support.

In spite of support from the German, Polish and Lithuanian governments, the bourgeois-nationalist forces in Western Byelorussia ultimately capitulated on 12 January 1919. In spite of the great successes in Byelorussia though, the Bolshevik situation in Ukraine was much more tenuous. The Red-Black alliance has been unable to significantly advance against the Ukrainian Hetmanate.

On 21 February, Soviet General Mikhail Tukhachevsky led the Soviet 4th Army in attack on the counterrevolutionary Don Cossacks. Better trained and supplied than in the previous year’s campaigns, the Red Army was able to inflict several demoralizing defeats on Pyotr Krasnov’s forces. Using cavalry forces disrupt the enemy’s rear areas, Tukhachevsky was able to outmatch the Don Cossacks and force engagements on his terms.

Krasnov himself was captured by Red Army cavalry forces during the encirclement of the Don Cossack capital of Novocherkassk as he attempted to escape on 14 March. With news of his capture, the city soon surrendered, and was mercifully spared liquidation. Continued resistance in the collapsing Don Host was met with Red Terror and Chekists, and by late April the region was considered more or less pacified.

Krasnov himself was executed on the order of a Bolshevik people’s tribunal soon after the close of active combat operations. The decisive Bolshevik victory over the Don Cossack Host proved to be a demoralizing blow to the White forces, and to the “Supreme Ruler” Aleksandr Kolchak personally, one that many historians consider crucial in his flight from Russia later that year.

With the conclusion of the Don campaign, the Bolsheviks began their campaign to liberate Ukraine from the Whites. The alliance with the Black Army was strengthened, though not without Makhno grumbling about the creeping Bolshevization of his strongholds. Nevertheless, a joint military expedition under the overall command of Bolshevik General Mikhail Frunze began moving against the alliance between the Ukrainian Hetmanate and the Tsarist General Anton Deniken. In spite of heavy casualties, and miscommunication between Red and Black forces, the Bolshevik alliance succeeded in taking Kherson, dividing their foes in two. Frunze then pressed his advantage against Deniken in the Crimea while Makho’s own forces crossed the Dnieper at Zaporhizia.

The initial phase of the Dnieper campaign concluded in late June, with the fall of Yelisavetgrad, and the beginning of the Siege of Sevastopol. Frunze’s forces would be locked down out of exhaustion for the remainder of the year, but the damage they had inflicted in the Ukrainian Whites had proven fatal. The second phase began on 4 July, when Bolshevik forces from Byelorussia marched south. Outnumbered and outgunned, Hetman Skoropadsky was forced to evacuate his government from Kiev to Odessa, allowing the Bolsheviks to recover the city almost unopposed.

Kolchak.JPG

Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, soon after joining his former sovereign Nikolay II in exile in Sweden.

While their drive did not make it much further South, the tide of battle had finally swung in Ukraine, yielding another significant propaganda victory for the Bolshevik government. While Siberia proved resilient in the first half of the year, by July it had become clear that a Bolshevik victory was almost inevitable. With Kolchack’s retreat into exile in August, leaving the “Supreme Governor” of the White movement to his subordinate Yudenich, the White movement’s fate was sealed. Troop mutinies soon handed several important cities along the Transiberian Railway to the Bolsheviks, along with General Yudenich. By November, it became clear that victory would only be a matter of time.

The Treaty of Versailles: A Summary

On 30 May 1919, peace talks between the Allies and the German Reich concluded, with all delegates signing the resulting treaty. The resulting treaty, however, was not satisfactory to any of the victors, let alone the defeated party.

Negotiations
British Aims: The government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George considered a demilitarized German republic to be an important trading partner, and thus considered reparations a potential threat to the British economy. The British government was similarly concerned with the American proposal—originally by Woodrow Wilson but subsequently supported by the Marshall-Mann diumvirate—for “self-determination” among the peoples of the Central Powers, which could pose a threat to Britain’s own colonial empire.

French Aims: By contrast, the French were out for blood, and to restore their hegemony on the continent. Clemenceau considered anything less to be impossible. Beyond restoring Alsace-Lorraine, the French sought to gain access to the industry of the Rhineland, and significant indemnity payments.

American Aims: The American government considered Wilson’s Thirteen Points to be in the interest of the American national economy, and her status as a world power. After sinking so much blood and treasure into the war, a return to isolationism was simply off the table. Instead, through an international forum of nations, the Americans sought to pry open the devastated European economy to American exports and free trade.
Territorial Changes
Alsace and Lorraine: Returned to France without plebiscite.

Northern Schleswig: Returned to Denmark via plebiscite.

Posen and West Prussia: Most of its territory ceded to Poland without plebiscite (an area of 55,800 square kilometers, and over four million inhabitants).

Hulschin in Upper Silesia, and the eastern part of Upper Siliesia: Transferred to Czechosovakia via plebiscite.

Eugen-Malmedy: Transferred to Belgium without popular recourse.

Memelland: Placed under American control, with the option to sell to Lithuania.

Saar Basin: Placed under administration by the League of Nations for a period of 20 years.

Danzig: Placed under a League of Nations protectorate as the Free City of Danzig.

Austria: The treaty forbade integration of the country with or into Germany.

Kamerun and Togoland: Divided between Britain and France.

Ruanda-Urundi: Transferred to Belgium.

German East Africa: The remainder of this territory was transferred to Great Britain, completing the Cape-to-Cairo empire.

German Southwest Africa: Mandated to the Union of South Africa.

German colonies in the Pacific: Islands north of the equator ceded to Japan. German Samoa assigned to New Zealand. German New Guinea, the Bismarcks and Nauru assigned to Australia as mandates.

Shandong: German concessions in Shandong ceded to the United States instead of China.
Reparations
The Treaty assigned war guilt to Germany, forcing the country assume responsibility for all “loss and damage” suffered by the Allies during the war. Much of the treaty regulated the means of assigning the exact monetary cost to be determined by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. France was awarded the lion’s share of the reparations, but the UK and United States also received significant direct reparations.
Impositions on Germany
The former Kaiser Wilhelm II was assigned the “supreme offense against international morality”, and is authorized to be tried as a war criminal, along with many other German citizens. The Rhineland is to be occupied by the Allies for a period of up to 20 years.

The German military is restricted to no more than 100,000 troops, and conscription is abolished. The German navy is limited to 15,000 men, six battleships (no more than 12,000 tonnes each, six cruisers (no more than 6,000 tonnes each), twelve destroyers (no more than 800 tonnes each), and 12 torpedo boats (no more than 200 tonnes each). Additionally, the import and export of weapons is prohibited, as are poison gas, armed aircraft, tanks and armored cars. Restrictions are also placed on the manufacture of machine guns and rifles.
Ratification
Overall, the Allies are divided on whether the Treaty was too vindictive or insufficiently harsh on Germany. Many officials in the American and British government consider it to be greedy, though the French military establishment and perhaps the public considered the treaty to be far too lenient. The United States ratifies the treaty in spite of significant opposition by the Socialist Labor Party, and “Irreconcilables” among the Republican Party.

Germany protested the conditions of the treaty loudly and publicly, and the now President of the German Reich Ebert considered rejecting the treaty and resuming hostilities if Field Marshal von Hindenburg considered the army capable of giving any meaningful resistance. However, the government ultimately acquiesced when even von Hindenburg considered resistance hopeless.
Demographic Shifts

America’s entrance into the First World War spurred a series of immense demographic changes. America’s conscript army was raised primarily from city dwellers, predominantly recent immigrants. With several million young hands removed from the factories to be sent to France, the manpower shortages in America’s cities spurred the beginning of a great exodus of young men from the farmlands of the West and Midwest back to the very cities their fathers and grandfathers had fled from.

In part, this exodus was made possible by relatively good harvests in the period from 1912 to 1918, and the increasing mechanization on some farms. Young men, used to the self-managed rhythms of farm labor, unaccustomed to collective solidarity and generally firm believers in the virtues of hard labor, threatened to break the urban labor movement in the early years of the War.

The arrival of a tide of rural workers to the industrial cities was absolutely crucial to breaking the February-March general strikes organized by Solidarity in opposition to the declaration of war and subsequent mobilization. These young natives, often intensely xenophobic, were the perfect scabs.

But the backlash that would result was inevitable. By the fall of 1919, recent migrants from the rural areas of the United States were more highly represented in the labor movement than immigrants. The very reason that made them the best scabs available in 1915 was also the very reason why they would make the quickest converts to communism.

The régime of industrial management was entirely alien to them. Having been raised with the expectation of self-regulated labor, which they would benefit from the fruit of, industrial capitalism became quickly intolerable. Working under a sadistic foreman for long days for very little gain, a slave to the tempo of the machines and the pattern of the clock, these young men (and women too, though in smaller numbers), found their way into the labor movement, heading to the hard left with greater propensity and frequency than other groups.

This trend would continue well into the 1920s, as their younger brothers joined them in the nation’s great industrial cities during what would later be called “The Roaring 20s”.
 
Nineteen-Twenty
The High Tide

Excerpts from Albert E. Kahn, Storming the Gates of Heaven: A History of the Comintern, (Cambridge, MA: Progress Publishers, 1962).

The Second World Congress of the Comintern laid out the basic doctrine of the international communist movement from early July to late August of 1920. To the modern eye, the decisions made at the Second Congress seem frightfully premature. While Lenin sent his 21 Conditions for approval by the Congress, he and his comrades were still bitterly engaged in the Soviet Revolutionary War. Yet the delegates prefaced their speeches with talk of the imminent world revolution, while all of the major capitalist powers had encircled Rossiya with bayonets, and threatened to strangle that very revolution in the cradle. Still, the deputies at the Congress maintained sufficient foresight to at least tackle the issues of the future of the movement.

...The severity of the 21 Conditions would prove too much for most delegations. While the inability to compromise on certain areas of doctrine, such as the strict adoption of democratic centralism, or the requirement for the complete expulsion of members deemed to be reformist, would deepen the already disastrous rift in the international Left, the splits caused by the question of reform or revolution revealed ultimately how degenerated the workers’ international had become. The conceits made by the reformist parties of the Second International had put them within reach of taking office in the bourgeois states of Europe, yet these ostensibly socialist parties would find themselves managing the instruments of a capitalist state to alleviate the crises of capital. This short-sighted Faustian gambit demonstrated the barely skin-deep penetration of Marx’s class analysis and historical materialism among the self-described Marxist intellectuals.

The Lassallean vulgar conceit had attained a tactical victory over Marxian social science. The unfortunate nature of reality, though, is that it does not care whether you agree with it or not. The Fabians’ failure to seize the moment in the decay of the capitalist world system following the First World War would prove to be ruinous in the long run. When Ebert turned the guns of Freikorps reactionaries on the revolutionary workers of Berlin, the parties of the dead Second International moved to expel their revolutionary sections, the Lasalleans condemned Europe to the worst bloodletting in known history. Many of them paid for their hubris with their lives in the storm of fascism. Unfortunately, their hubris claimed the lives of millions of others. But ultimately, every fascism is an index of a failed revolution.

This is not to say that the parties of the Comintern were at all blameless. The failure of the revolutionary upsurge left the communists hung out to dry. In the period immediately after, the consolidation of the Bolshevik state caused almost irreparable harm to the international communist movement. The Comintern itself was increasingly an arm of Stalinist foreign policy, using Lenin’s conditions to create insidious weapons for internal witch-hunts and factional squabbles.

...The American delegation to the Comintern faced the same unenviable choice as the French Section. While the use of state terror during the war years and the massive revolutionary surge during the Biennio Rosso had destroyed much of the Socialist Labor Party’s moderate faction, either by pushing them to the Left or out of the movement altogether, even many on the Left were hesitant to completely endorse the 21 Conditions. While many conditions were rather agreeable, the second, seventh and seventeenth conditions proved particularly worrisome. The party was simply in no shape for the internal purge necessary to put “tested communists” in every important decision. Similarly, a drastic restyling of the party was most unsavory at a time when the existing party name was finally gaining strength among the proletariat.

...In the end, the American delegation gave their unanimous recommendation to adopt the 21 Conditions and join the Comintern as a full member. However, that decision would ultimately be put to the test at the Socialist Labor Party National Convention, to be held in the Chicago Commune in January of 1921. The debate would be heated, and threatened to split the party in two. The rump of the reformist faction, severely depleted of delegates and speakers, clustered around president of the former Typographical Union Max S. Hayes, and vehemently opposed joining the Comintern.

The Left, which comprised of the vast majority of the party, was divided as well. The past year had seen a split among the pro-Bolshevik membership into groups usually referred to as the Left and Ultra-Left. The growing Ultra-Left faction instead attacked the state of the Comintern and the Bolshevik Revolution from the left, and was arguably more committed to revolutionary socialism than the Bolsheviks. Hence their many reservations with the 21 Conditions. They centered on the leadership of famed academician Walter Lippmann, and the young and brilliant son of Daniel DeLeon, Solon.

…John Reed, the boyish face of the future, personally presented Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin’s personal remarks to the American proletariat, offering their reasons in favor of the Comintern and the conditions it imposed. He ended his speech with his own reflections of his time in Rossiya during the revolution, and the decisive moment the question of whether to strike in Petrograd was considered. “This decision,” he argued, “will be no less momentous than that fateful decision by the workers of the Pulitov Plant, in Petrograd, to consider their shivering and starving children’s plight, throw caution to the winds and a spanner in the Pulitov works. That one decision [...] set off the chain of events that toppled an Emperor, ended a war, and established the first workers’ republic. Fortune favors the bold, my comrades.”

...It was Solon DeLeon who spoke after Big Bill Haywood. While he congratulated the stout Wobbly on his work organizing the industrial unions and fighting against the imperialist game of the First World War, he offered his own annotations to the late German communist Karl Liebknecht’s criticism of the excesses of the Bolsheviks, relating them directly to the matter of the Comintern’s conditions. DeLeon accused the Bolsheviks of an errant, right-wing deviation from the fundamentals of Marxism.

In his critique, DeLeon accused the Bolsheviks of playing an adventurist gamble, supported not by dialectical materialism, but the “fiction of the utopian society supplanting the capitalist nation.” This old fiction, long held by maligned petit-bourgeois, had simply found its latest form in Bolshevism. Bolshevism had merely militarized the Lasallean “People’s State” and Kautskyan “educational dictatorship” modes of parliamentary party organization:
“Leninist-Kautskyist staatsozialismus has produced, instead of the taking of political power by the workers in the dictatorship of the proletariat, a self-perpetuating political autocracy of a self-declared ‘communist’ party over a state capitalist monopoly. Lenin’s red bureaucracy is just as sinister, and just as opposed to the political rule of the working class, as the old bourgeois bureaucracy.”
...Ultimately, what stole the show and sealed the decision were some fashionably late arrivals, and a speech by the most unlikely of party members. Both Eugene Debs and Former Senator LaFollette arrived at the convention fashionably late, excusably so. Having booth been recently pardoned on the recommendation of the Cabinet and President-elect Wood for conviction under the Sedition Act, the former Republican and moderate fellow traveler of socialism came to the convention barely in time for the close of the debate.

Debs hadn’t let his stint in federal prison hold him back, and had headed the party’s presidential ticket while in prison in an act of revolutionary defiance. While he sympathized with the Ultra-Left’s critique, he countered by arguing the necessity of an international working class movement in opposition to international capitalism. The Comintern, while imperfect, was the best tool for that job.

Freshly divorced, penniless, and emaciated from his stay in federal prison, LaFollette proved to be another strange convert to the Left. He spoke of how his trust in the American dream had been shattered by the events of the last six years, half-cursing the naivete of his past. As a pariah now, he accepted his fate handed down from on high, but did not shrink from fighting against. Shocking everyone, he spoke in favor of the Comintern and endorsed the 21 Conditions. In the end, the Left prevailed. The Ultra-Left agreed to ratify the conditions, though they urged solidarity and fairness in their application. And the majority of the Right, though they voted against acceptance of the 21 Conditions, agreed to abide by them and to not quit the party. On February 15th, 1921, newly rechristened Workers’ Party of America formally joined the Communist International.

Some excerpts from the alternatehistory.com thread titled “Revolution in the Biennio Rosso?”

SpessCowboy said:
Hey guys, I’m new here and this is my first post, so I don’t know if this has been done yet. But I was wondering if it would be possible for the American Revolution to occur right after WWI, during the Biennio Rosso. Have any good timelines been done on that subject? What kind of change would be needed for the labor militancy of the period to break out into full blown revolution?

AdmiralSanders said:
An act of god

DamnedTory said:
Be nice to the noob, Sanders.

To expand, basically the consensus we’ve reached here on the board is that it just won’t be possible without a POD going so far back that the history of the early 20th century is unrecognizable. It’s basically like Operation Sea Lion but for politics (another thread that’s been done to death).

Domestically, the American government had done just about everything possible to fuck up. The rationing system was heavily abused, and the rich basically ended up having their luxury consumption untouched as well as their sons effectively undraftable. Heavy handed attempts to contain labor fifth columns in war industry most often just ended up pushing everyone into the trade unions, even those who had previously been patriots and opposed to war resistance. It is difficult to imagine a government that could possibly have screwed up the homefront more.

Certainly, they had a unique problem with the fact that the First World War really wasn’t you Yank’s fight to begin with. But properly managed, they could have at least not driven half the working class into revolutionary socialism.

The main reason for the big uprisings after WWI is that the wartime controls could no longer be maintained post-armistice. So the pent-up rage exploded into some real Jacobin shit across America. But while the workers were angry, and taking it out on everyone else in a giant temper-tantrum, they really didn’t have a concrete idea of where to go. Neither did the party leaders, who were by-and-large behind the uprisings, not leading them.

AdmiralSanders said:
As much as I am inclined to agree with your politics, DT, calling the Biennio Rosso period a “temper-tantrum” is baseless and ahistorical. The masses involved in the trade unions, the various labourist groups and even the Spartacists were fighting for their liberty against a tyrannical regime and its cronies.

Said regime was at least smart enough to back away from the precipice after the Armistice, and worked to placate its people, rather than degenerate into autocracy, something you’ve advocated on more than one occasion.

You call yourself a liberal conservative just as I did, but you seem to have forgotten important parts of the “liberal” part of that equation. Supporting autocracy as a means to suppress leftists is just plain barbaric and counterproductive.

Some notable events, 1920

January 12: The governments of the Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic, the Byelorussian Soviet Republic, and the Ukrainian People’s Republic sign a treaty establishing a unified command structure for their allied armed forces, as well as important economic cooperation measures.

January 20: Faced with collapsing demand due to demobilization, the Amalgamated Coal Corporation (a trust controlling 88% of American coal production) announces harsh pay cuts for its workforce as well as mass terminations.

January 24: The State of South Carolina becomes the first to ratify an amendment to the US Constitution to ban the production, sale and consumption of alcohol, having become a dry state the previous year.

February 5: The Republican Party, now the second place party in the House thanks to a slew of resignations, and a few untimely deaths, votes to leave the national coalition. The Democratic minority government places Champ Clark in the First Secretary chair.

February 12: In Mingo County, West Virginia, a group of coal miners associated with the fledgling SLP local call a wildcat strike. The powder keg explodes, and soon the strike is spreading like a wildfire across West Virginia coal country.

February 18: British troops withdraw from Murmansk and Central Asia, ending foreign intervention in the Soviet Revolutionary War.

February 21: The first meeting of the League of Nations begins in Great Britain.

February 24: State police and hired goons attempting to put down strikers in Matewan, West Virginia are routed by armed miners led by WWI veterans. The tragic death of several of the miner’s families in the pitched battle shocks even the bourgeois press.

March 3: The United Mineworkers announce a general strike in sympathy with their comrades in West Virginia. Intended to be a peaceful downing of tools, a combination of revolutionary fervor and anger at management result in occupations at most major mines.

March 9: General Wood takes over the Massachusetts Republican Party, beginning negotiations with the SLP and union locals to restore the rule of law. As part of his bid to stem the class war, he promises the introduction of new reforms, including workplace safety and powersharing with unions.

March 14: In response to spreading rumors of a renewed federal and state crackdown on the forces of organized labor, workers and farmers begin a new wave of en masse strikes. The ranks of the armed paramilitary Spartacus League swell, as many yeoman farmers and proletarians take up arms. Inspired by developments in Russia, soviet councils and congresses begin to form across the areas in uprising.

April 1: As police and National Guard sporadically clash with Spartacists across the Midwest and Midatlantic regions, the Clark government declares martial law on the home front. The invocation of Posse Comitatus barely passes, thanks to surprising resistance among the Wood faction of the Republican Party.

April 9: The revolutionary wave reaches the West coast, as insurrectionary soviets take control of the cities of Seattle, San Francisco and Portland. In the Mountain West, the revolutionary fervor is dampened by Republican reform governments.

April 17: The Socialist Labor Party’s Emergency National Congress meets in the union controlled city of Chicago. In spite of being behind the bandwagon, the Party decisively adopts a revolutionary platform, supporting the wave of uprisings.

April 25: While soviets and factory committees form begin forming in New England, compared to revolutionary insurrections of much of the industrial heart of America, the local Socialist Labor groups decide to pursue more modest reform programs. Compared to the rest of the country, New England is surprisingly passive.

May 4: While the American Railway Union’s general strike has stopped many efforts to restore order in insurrectionary centers, they lack the strength or the will to decisively seize control. Consequently, most revolutionary centers are isolated, and while rural areas have supported insurrectionary actions in some places, they are considerably less organized, motivated and supported compared to urban counterparts. In Chicago, the heart of the revolutionary surge, the mayor and other city leaders return to negotiate an end to the uprising.

May 12: The Bolshevik campaign to take the Caucasus ends after long, grueling months of fighting. The Mensheviks governments of the area capitulate against the overwhelming might of the Red Army.

June 1: The First National Congress of Soviets meets, with considerable difficulty, in the high tide of the Biennio Rosso. Even as the delegations are meeting in Chicago, many groups across the country are losing steam and turning to the negotiation table.

June 11: Congress officially censures President Marshall and First Secretary Clark for their disastrous handling of the national crisis. The Democratic Party is in shambles, and the minority government is sustained only due to the imminence of the election and the need for someone to hold the reins until then.

July 4: Most of the Midwest has returned to normalcy, following the end of the ARU’s general strike.

July 15: The Second World Congress of the Communist International takes place in Petrograd.

July 30: Amidst the crumbling of the revolutionary wave, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party begins its national convention. They adopt a program mixing the tradition of American populism with reformist socialism.

August 2: The Republican National Convention meets much later than expected. Leonard Wood, having become somewhat of a hero to both the establishment and reformers, wins the nomination on the first ballot. The more conservative Calvin Coolidge is nominated as his running mate.

August 10: Following a series of agreements of reform agreements, the exhausted workers in the coal fields agree to return to work, having long since depleted their strike funds. The next day, order is restored in New York. By the end of the week, the guns mostly fall silent. As part of the agreement, the trials of Italian immigrant labor organizers Nikola Sacco and Bartolommeo Vanzetti are allowed to proceed. With the guarantees made by the New York state government, the personal contributions of even some establishment figures to their defense, Sacco and Vanzetti are likely to be the first Italians to ever get a fair trial in the United States.

August 18: Talks to form an American professional football association end in failure, thanks to insufficient commitment from investors. The unreformed sport is perceived to be too savage to make a commercial endeavor in violent times.

September 5: In the VII Olympiad, the US rugby union team takes home the gold medal amidst much fanfare.

September 18: Through a combination of superior organization, subterfuge, and outright chicanery, Ukrainian Bolsheviks take total control of the government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic following soviet elections. Nestor Makhno is placed under house arrest while the Black Army is disarmed.

October 3: The Treaty of Warsaw is signed, ending hostilities between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. The border is finalized, resulting in the a large area of predominantly polish speakers along the Lithuanian border being annexed into Byelorussia, while a Ukrainian speaking tract along the Czechoslovakian border is retained by Poland.

November 2: General Leonard Wood is elected President of the United States (details below) in the first national election broadcast by radio.

November 30: With the Soviet Revolutionary War almost concluded, with no prospect for a revolutionary advance forthcoming in Europe, General Secretary Josef Stalin details his proposal for “building socialism in one country” to the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party.

1920 General Election Results

Presidential Results
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House Results
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Senate Results
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Presidential Election Map
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The Roaring Twenties

Excerpts from Oliver Lark, George Patton: Proletarian Soldier (London: Doubleday, 1977).(1)

Of one thing there is no doubt, and that is the simple fact that George Patton lived an extraordinary life. Born into an aristocratic conservative family in California on 11 November 1885, Patton would go on to serve with distinction in the First World War, advancing to the rank of Colonel in the American Expeditionary Force. While serving, he helped pioneer the use of armoured warfare, innovating tactics and strategies would later become staples in the American military. Facing the hardships and horrors of life in the trenches, Patton, like so many others of his generation, came home a changed man. He soon renounced his birthright, became estranged with his wife and family, and joined the Workers’ Party of America, all within a few short months of returning from France in 1919. Patton, along with his close comrade David Eisenhower, had set the pattern for so many World War veterans. They went off to war committed to their nation’s cause, and came home subversives.

...The sheer number of career military officers in the United States Army who professed belief in Socialism after the Great War is simply astounding. While no reliable figures can be found to establish the exact percentage, estimates range from fifteen percent to as high as twenty-eight percent! Whatever the rate, it is clear just how much the American polity and her military were rotting by 1920. Patton was hardly alone in his beliefs in the army, and as his letter’s show, he formed a discussion club among trusted comrades from the army to correspond on politics.

...In one such letter, Patton writes to Eisenhower, confessing about his experiences in the Great War. “Dear Ike,” he writes:
It was at Chemin-de-Dames that it hit me with the force of revelation. Our Mk. IVs had bogged down in the German auxillary trench, and the Jerries soon came down on us with artillery, followed by an infantry attack. We soon ran out of ammunition for our tank’s machine guns, and we had to fend off the last of their assault hand to hand, with knives and bayonets. The kids we bayonetted, they couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen. I felt old, and worn out. And as relief came, and we finally had a moment of peace, I suddenly realized I had no idea why I was here, or why I was butchering young German boys, or why they were doing the same to us. I didn’t know whether I could believe in my country anymore, or even believe in God.
While the exact details of Patton’s conversion from Christian soldier to atheist communist remain to the imagination, the documentary evidence suggests that it occurred shortly after the end of the Chemin-de-Dames campaign, while Patton was on a three-day pass in Paris. Patton’s letters, and own recollections preserved on archival film suggest that during that time, Patton met up with a French socialist group. One of the few details that are known is that the group was composed of some number of dissident intellectuals, as well as a number of veterans of the French army, discharged as amputees. Patton, now semi-fluent in French, conversed with this group about the political issues of the war and economics for from anywhere from a few hours to whole evening, depending on the account.
Upon returning to the front in early June of 1917, Patton spent the next few months in command of an infantry battalion in the 17th Infantry Division. Morale was dismally poor, and the troops were under provisioned. Though he had been a stern taskmaster before, he was twice reprimanded by superior officers for fraternization in this period. Thanks to the pressing manpower situation, and his exemplary record, there was no official disciplinary action.

His own memoirs mention an event during this period. A group of NCOs threatened mutiny in response to their orders to go over the wall, unprepared, and attack German lines as part of an upcoming offensive. This conspiracy happened within earshot of a junior officer, who promptly reported it to Patton. Rather than follow standard army protocol and arraign the ringleaders before courts-martial as examples to other potential mutineers, Patton spoke with the conspirators personally. The conversation that followed was downright treasonous: Patton suggested they keep their heads down, and not find themselves in front of a firing squad now so that they could survive the war, and turn their guns on the ones responsible for putting the army in this situation.

...The first self-reference of socialist belief would not come until a diary entry nearly a month later. He writes tepidly in favour of socialism and its “brotherhood of man,” and suggests at an imperial nature in the First World War, impugning the motives the national leaders of the Allies as well as the Central Powers. In perhaps the strongest language seen from this previously gentlemanly character, he calls the current president, Woodrow Wilson, a “pompous old jackass” and “a capitalist running-dog.” Where he picked up such an obviously German construction is impossible to tell.

...Like many radicals of his generation, it was the Bolshevik Revolution that ultimately steeled his convictions in socialism. His correspondence after the war contains many recollections and conversations about the aforementioned event. One such letter was written to John Reed, praising his work on Ten Days That Shook the World, and propositioning a collaborative history of the Soviet Revolutionary Wars, a project that later became the infamous three volume history compendium, written with Reed and Leon Trotsky, the charismatic exile from the very regime he helped build. A History of the Soviet Union, from Birth to Betrayal is perhaps the most oft-cited history of the early Soviet period, and became one of Patton’s fixations from 1928 to its first publishing in late 1935.

...From the end of the First World War until the beginning of the Revolution, Patton found himself living a double life. His loyalties were ambiguous after a few incidents, but thanks to some personal recommendations from General MacArthur, the Army’s internal affairs division considered him to be still a reliable officer in spite of his socialist sympathies. This mistaken impression was made possible by the turmoil of founding of the Comintern. When the Socialist Labor Party restyled itself as a Comintern Party, records of Patton’s membership in the party disappeared. Patton himself portrayed it as a matter of leaving the party over its radicalism.

Because of his knowledge, and the strong vouchers for his reliability to the army, the unorthodox officer was considered to be the best candidate to investigate and infiltrate subversive groups within the Army, and to spy on domestic political groups. While on paper he was part of the near defunct Armor Corps of the US Army, in practice Patton served as an important officer for Army Intelligence’s domestic spying, both on civilians and in the military.

Unbeknownst to his superiors, Patton had never left the party. Instead, he had joined the underground party apparatus, and spent much of the 1920s and early 30s working as a double agent within Army Intelligence. The outcome of his deception would ultimately prove disastrous for the Army, and the coup he’d made against Army intelligence with the network of radicals he had clandestinely shielded in the Army would prove a decisive factor in the coming civil war.

Patton was certainly not the only party member to have turned espionage on its head. Indeed, several other important figures in state police organizations, the US Marshals Service and the National Bureau of Investigation are now known to have been, or suspected to have been party members in the 1920s. Some have spun such a web of lies and half-truths that the real story will never be untangled. The uncertain loyalties of the infamous Public Safety chief J. Edgar Hoover are a staple of crime and mystery fiction to this day. But arguably, the central role that Army played in the civil war, and the crucial role that Patton and his comrades played in the Red victory make Patton’s game of smoke and mirrors the most important.

The following excerpts were from the chapter “Political Realignment in the ‘Long 20s’” from a generic high school American history textbook. (Co-written by Illuminatus_Primus)

…Political realignment in Late Capitalism, brought on by parliamentary constitutional reform and the growth of workers’ power, resulted in an increasing inability of the liberal bourgeoisie to maintain control of the old Republicans and Democrats in the tug of war between conciliatory reformists and far-right reactionaries and radical populists. Party society fragmented dramatically in the Long 20s.

By 1930, the Democratic Party and Republican Party together accounted for only 50% of all votes counted. The highly regressive electoral system of the U.S. Constitution, though highly weakened by the increasing marginalization of the Senate upper-chamber and the introduction of bourgeois responsible executive government in the popular chamber, remained intense. The old gerrymandered single-member plurality congressional districts were highly disproportional. Therefore, victory counts for the major parties and for choice fusionist tickets often belied the total votes casted for marginal parties and schismatic groups.

The WP and DFLP accounted for more than their votes suggested, even via united fronts and fusionism with local and small sect groups, though not to the hegemonic extent of the major bourgeois parties, due to rampant fraud and continuing repression and gerrymandering…

It is important to remember that before the revolution, one of the major controls of popular democracy was the redistricting system. The lower house of the Old Republic had seats apportioned to the states on the basis of population. But these seats were all single-member constituencies, which are a rarity post-revolution. Because of this, the boundaries of the districts greatly affect the outcome. Furthermore, there was no constitutional requirement that the districts contain the same number of residents. Districting was controlled by state legislatures. Consequently, in the Northern states, the Republican Party could ensure that it had an advantage in federal elections through its reliable control of state legislatures, which were also gerrymandered the same way as House of Representative seats. Southern states were essentially single-party states, dominated by the Democratic Party, and so could reliably produce a disproportionate number of seats for that party in the House.

This was done by two general ways. First, urban districts, which leaned more strongly towards the Workers Party in many states usually had considerably more residents, diluting their vote. Since there were more rural and suburban districts, the Republican Party had a disproportionate number of seats.

In South, there was the additional tools of voter disenfranchisement, which kept large numbers of blacks and poor whites from even being able to vote at all. But the system couldn’t last forever under the strain.

Additionally, after the fallout from the 1920 general election, states began changing how they selected electors to the Electoral College, who selected the president. Prior to 1924, nearly all states had their electors chosen in a slate. Whichever candidate won the state’s popular vote got all of the state’s electors. This had been criticized by Progressives as grossly disproportionate and unfair.

The compromise reached in the 1920s was to have each elector be tied to a congressional district, along with two electors tied to the states vote (the Electoral College consisted of one elector for each member of the House of Representatives in each state, and a number of electors equal to the number of Senators). This naturally had to the bonus of tying electoral votes to gerrymandered congressional districts, helping maintain the Republican Party’s grip on the presidency.

When coalitions between the revolutionary Workers’ Party and the reformist Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party took control of a number of crucial state legislatures in the 1930 election year, they gained a considerable amount of control over the redistricting process. In other states, governments were forced to bow to general strikes protesting the gerrymandering, and adopt fairer redistricting. This would be crucial in ensuring that the large swing towards the Workers’ Party and the DFLP wasn’t totally impotent in the 1932 general election.

…A proliferation of would-be centrist, nationalist-populist, reactionary, quasi-fascist and fascist, as well as religious revivalist, Christian and alternative socialist, labor nationalist, and reformist as well as ultra-left party-sects and groups and figures proliferated. So did the expansion of American class-strugglist anarchism, particularly fresh from its class-renown radicalism, courage, and defiance of the state in the Biennio Rosso. The Spartacist paramilitaries, formed from veterans of the elite formations in the First World War, grew in strength considerably with the restart of the class war following Black Friday. Its anarcho-syndicalist sections particularly proliferated in the relative party-independence of Solidarity

…In his seminal work, The Class Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton identifies several qualities of fascism. While his work was based on his study of the French collaborationist regime, Mussolini’s Italian Fascism, and German “National Socialism,” several groups began to adopt these qualities, what Paxton identifies in supplementary works as “failed fascisms”.

Firstly, the various ethnic-fascist solidarity groups, the quasi-authoritarian-nationalist, semi-Nazi-sympathizing (especially by 1930) German-American Bund, and the Italian Fascisti Americani in close sympathy with the National Fascist Party of Mussolini’s Italy. For the most part, these groups were relatively weak compared with the other fascists on the American far-right, but they made up with their limited numbers with a strong level of fanaticism, tight organization, and a higher propensity to violence.

Their presence was very common in ethnic neighborhoods, and they were constantly engaged in a sort of gang-warfare with both the Spartacus League as was as the communist affiliated Jewish-American Labor Bund. They were often sustained by patronage from large conglomerates and wealthy sympathizers, who used them as hired muscle against labor groups.

There was Father Rev. Coughlin’s predominantly-Irish (though with some significant exceptions) Unity Party. Though often considered an ethnic fascism, the Coughlinites styled themselves as a more general fascism, as American as apple pie. The Unity Party developed a rhetoric and propaganda along the lines of the British Union of Fascists, presenting itself as a strong, nationalist antidote to the twin evils of capitalist excess and communist revolution.

Finally, there were the auxiliary fascisms, who were largely controlled by state groups and tended to provide muscle to whatever right-wing cause du jour was important. Chief among these was the American Legion, chartered by the Republican post-war Majority Government House of Representatives charted the American Legion. Styling itself as a veteran’s association similar to the First Civil War’s Grand Army of the Republic, in practice they were a non-sectarian far-right muscle group, and derisively nicknamed “the American Stahlhelm,” by left-wing groups.

Excerpts from “Review: Towards a Permanent Republican Majority” by George Catlin, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, February 1930.

Nathan Fines’ recent study of American political trends gives us a bold prediction: as a direct consequence of political dynamics, demographic trends and most of all economic cycles, the American Republican Party will be uniquely situated to dominate American political life for the foreseeable future. Fines’ thesis is bold indeed, and while the Republican Party’s landslide general election victory and the political success of the Hoover-Longworth Administration’s(3) political programme may seem to the pedestrian observer to be proof positive, we must be more cautious in evaluating the strength of such a profound claim. Nevertheless, Fines has come prepared, marshalling an impressive range of evidence with remarkable clarity.

...One of the strongest planks of Fines’ thesis is his analysis of the Republican Party’s successful strategy of co-opting both the political programmes and organization methods of their adversaries at the polls. Since the 1920 general election, the Republican Party’s chief adversary has been the communist Workers’ Party. As Fines so eloquently put it, “the socialist opposition has been the most able and thorough schoolmaster in the art of mass politics in the entirety of the Grand Old Party’s existence.” Indeed, the Republicans have made able use of their education. The modern Republican Party, organizationally, is the mirror image of the mass-based membership Workers’ Party(4). The Republicans’ impressive resources have allowed for the mobilization of an impressive membership group, and a powerful electoral apparatus to mobilize support for the party on Election Day.

The Republicans have done more than learn new organizational methods from the opposition, though. While many high-profile attempts at political realignment failed under the Wood presidency, the Republican Party has spent most of the ’20s experimenting with adopting facets of the Workers’ Party’s “Minimal Programme”. Hoover’s first term led to limited success on that front, adopting landmark workplace safety legislation; it was ultimately First Secretary Longworth’s decisive reorganization of the parliamentary Republican membership leading up to and after the 1928 election victory that have allowed the social democratic reforms of the past year. Hoover’s controversial election platform, which called for the nationalisation of the railroads and comprehensive federal disaster relief programmes, are, as Fines’ polling data demonstrates, a key factor to winning over many Midwestern and Southern farmers to the Republican Party. In spite of high profile opposition within the party, both measures passed under Longworth’s strong parliamentary leadership.

...However, there remain some problems with Fines’ thesis. A permanent Republican majority rests on extrapolating current economic and demographic trends. A dramatic increase in the rate of urbanisation, or a weakening of economic standard of living growth, could very easily upset the Republican Party’s prospects for the future. Similarly, Fines’ prediction of the total demise of the Democratic Party within the next decade is beset with reasonable doubts. Identification with the Democratic Party is still very strong in the American South, in spite of the success of both the Republican and Workers’ Parties’ penetration of the electorate in the last election. The Republicans’ Southern auxiliary, the Patriotic League, simply may not have the staying power to uproot such an enduring tradition.


Program

and

Constitution

Workers’ Party of America

Adopted
At National Convention

New York City
24-6 December 1921

Preface

The Great War has brought untold misery and chaos in its wake. Millions of workers have been maimed and slaughtered in the conflict of the imperialist governments. Capitalist society is face to face with social and industrial collapse; Kingdoms and empires have disappeared; but republics, ruled by an exploiting class more powerful and more unscrupulous than the kings and emperors, have taken their place.

National hatred rules the world. In spite of peace treaties and international conferences, the relations between the nations are more strained than ever. Intense commercial rivalry, and the resentment of the weak and vanquished nations against their victorious oppressors are a constant menace to world peace. The capitalists, dismayed at the chaos, and yet unable to understand it or even to contemplate its economic causes, are blindly steering the world towards new wars.

In Germany and Austria, the masses are being bled to meet the exorbitant war indemnities. In England France and Italy, an impoverished proletariat is paying for armaments on a larger and more stupendous scale than ever before. Every gun that is made, every battleship that is launched and every shell that is manufactured, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, to add to the profits the exploiters and increases the poverty of the wage slaves.

Even before this war social legislation met only inadequately the needs of a proletariat condemned to uncertainties of existence under capitalism. Today it is a farce. No lasting improvement of the condition of the workingman under capitalism is any longer dream dreamed of. More than ever before, hunger and' want are rife among the workers. And the violent uprisings that result are met with merciless suppression by the master class. All capitalist governments are openly fighting the battle the employers. The legislatures, courts and the executive powers stand behind them. The struggle of the workers for the most elementary necessities of life is met with ruthless persecution, and tend to become a fight for political power—a revolutionary struggle.

The Workers’ party will base its policies on the international nature of this struggle. It will strive to make the American labor movement an integral part of the revolutionary movement of the workers of the world. The Workers’ Party will expose the Second International, which is continually splitting the ranks of labor and betraying the working masses to the enemy. It will also warn and guard the workers against the attempt of the so-called Two-and-a-Half International to mislead them.

Disillusioned by the cowardly and traitorous conduct of their own leaders, and inspired by the proletarian revolution in Russia, the workers of the world have organized the Communist International. Despite the bitter opposition of the Capitalists and their Progressive lieutenants, the Communist International is growing rapidly, it has become a world power, the citadel and hope of the workers of every country.

Even America, the bulwark of world capitalism, is suffering acutely from the general disorganization. Its economic and financial life has been caught in the violent, swirling maelstrom of war. Because of the catastrophic appreciation of European currency it can find no outlet for the products of its industry. Its foreign trade has declined approximately fifty per cent. Armies of unemployed crowd the cities. Millions are out of work. War prosperity is ended. The bread lines have come. Capitalism is totally unable to cope with the situation. Its utter helplessness was revealed at the recent Government Unemployment Conference, Nowhere is there a serious effort to ameliorate this condition. On the contrary, the employers are using it to increase their power of exploitation and oppression. The steel trusts, the oil monopoly, the railroads, the meat-packing and textile industries have already made heavy cuts in the workers’ pay. A powerful anti-worker campaign is being waged by the Employer’s Association. Even the soldiers who have givent heir all in the fight for capitalist “democracy,” are now clubbed and jailed at the first sign of protest against the destitution forced upon them by this same “democracy,” which is in fact a dictatorship of the exploitating class. Everywhere it is robbing the workers of the small gains they have won through many years of struggle.

Platform
Imperialism

For generations the workers have been producing a surplus over and above what they have received in wages. A part of this surplus the capitalists have invested in the development and exploitation of the industrially backward countries of Asia, Africa and South America. These countries have been cowed into submission as colonies or “spheres of influence.” In order to safeguard their investments in these countries, European and American capitalists have seized control of the local governments and oppressed and terrorized the native populations. Today these exploited and oppressed people, inspired by the Russian Revolution, demanding freedom. In China, in India and Egypt, in Haiti, in the Philippines, in South America, in Mexico and South Africa—everywhere the spirit of revolt is awakening with new strength and momentum.

In the United States, the master class has not only been culpable for immense atrocities, both to foreign peoples and to its own sons it sends overseas to protect the plunder of rich men at home, but has also been complicit in the crimes of the other imperialist powers.

The Workers’ Party is the only party opposed to the despoliation and plunder of the peoples of the world to serve the interests of capital. As in our own struggles against our domestic oppressors, we recognize an organic solidarity with all of the oppressed peoples of the world, and that an injury to one is an injury to all.

It is the program of the Workers’ Party to oppose all foreign imperialist adventures. We demand that no more blood be spilt for plundered riches. We will not stand idly by while humanity is placed on a cross of gold. With the establishment of a Workers’ Republic in the United States, the Party shall ally itself with the forces of liberation across the world.

The Class Struggle

The whole capitalist system of production rests upon the robbery and enslavement of the workers. In the United States, the Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Schwabs, the railroad junkers, the coal barons, the industrial magnates, own the means of production and the workers cannot secure work without their consent. They are unable to earn the means of buying food, clothing, and homes to live in without the permissions of these financial and industrial kings. The owners of capital are so many czars and Kaisers, each with a group of workers ranging from a few hundreds to tens of thousands whose right to life they hold in their hands through their control of the workers’ opportunity to earn a living.

The conditions on which the workers are permitted to work is the enrichment of the capitalists. They must prostrate themselves, and work for wages which will leave in their masters’ hands the lions’ share of what they produce. They much add more millions to Rockefeller’s billions, they must create new hundreds of millions for Morgan, they must add to the swollen fortunes of the financial and industrial lords of the country.

In the Declaration of Independence, a document underlying the institutions of the country, it was laid down as a principle that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and “that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

These rights do not exist for the thirty million American wage workers and their families. The workers of this country are industrial slaves. They cannot work and earn a living without the consent of the capitalists.

The struggle against these conditions is continually breaking out in strikes. The history of this country during the last half century is full of examples of the rebellion of the workers. This class struggle for enough bread to feed their families has always been met with violence by the kings of industry.

The mass power of the exploited class is its strongest weapon in the struggle against the capitalists. And the capitalists are aware of this, and rightly fear the power of a band of working men. The capitalists seek to divide the workers against each other, through patronage to skilled laborers, a class of enforcers on their payroll, and by setting native workers against immigrants, and White workers against their Negro, Chicano and Chinese brothers.

By hook or crook, the masters have maintained their power. But the successes of the Workers’ Party, and of the International Worker Solidarity Union have testified to the ultimate historical inevitability of socialism. The power of the capitalist state, and its armies, police, prisons and propaganda apparatus have not been sufficient to defeat the simple resistance of ordinary workers across the country. The powers they wield are great, but the power held by the workers, organized as a class to fulfill the interests of class is greater than the might of any army.

The task of the Workers’ Party in this era of revolutionary upsurge is to continue this struggle. The Workers Party shall serve as the university of the working class. Through its union federation, the party shall fight the day to day struggles for better conditions, organizing resources to ensure the maximal defense of the immediate interests of the working class. The Party has committed itself to fight every struggle for workers’ power, and to unite ever greater numbers of workers into the class struggle.

The Government

The workers’ struggle has also been a struggle against the capitalist state, for the state is the instrument of class rule. Recent events have testified all too well to this inescapable truth; far too many mothers have buried their sons thanks to the relentless brutality of the capitalists’ cronies. The parties of the establishment are in actuality a single capitalist party, united against the Workers’ Party.

In the struggle against the imperialist war, the Democrats and Republicans, who claim to be foes and irreconcilably opposed to one another, had no problem collaborating to bring the army and police to bear against workers who did not wish to see their sons die for Morgan’s gold. This repression has continued even after the capitalists triumphed, and began to feast upon the corpses of their foes.

The workers cannot wage a successful struggle against capitalist exploitation and oppression while the government remains in control of the capitalists. The Workers’ Party is prepared to fight the political struggle of the class war; a struggle for the workers to at last take control of the government and direct their own lives.

To this end, the Workers Party will use all the tools at its disposal to fight this political struggle, including elections. The Workers’ Party will not foster the illusion, has is done by the yellow Socialists, that the workers can achieve their emancipation through election alone. The institutions of the country have been designed to prevent exactly that.

The so-called democracy of the United States is a sham. The constitution makes it impossible for a majority antagonistic to the ruling class to make its will effective. The merchants, bankers and landlords of 1787 wrote the constitution to protect the interests of their class. A majority of people cannot change the constitution. The votes of two-thirds of the members of the legislators of three-fourts of the states is required to pass a constitutional amendment. One-fourth of the states, in which there may live only one-fortieth of the population, can prevent any change to the law of the land.

The House of Representatives and the President are elected every four years, while the Senate is elected by the state legislators every two years for six year terms. The Senate may block the actions of the House of Representatives, and the President may veto the actions of both bodies. And over and above them stands the Supreme Court, which can nullify laws which all three unite in passing.

In addition to these protections, millions of workers are further disenfranchised through naturalization laws. Hundreds of thousands cannot vote because of residential qualifications, which through the necessity of earning a living wage make it impossible for them to comply with. The capitalists control thousands of newspapers through which they seek to shape the ideas of the masses in their interests. They control the schools, the colleges, the pulpits, the moving picture theatres, all of which are part of the machinery through which the capitalists seek to dominate the workers.

Under these conditions, talk of democracy is to throw sand in the eyes of the workers. This democracy is a sham. And yet the masters call the people to pay their reverence to this nation’s “greatness” every Fourth of July. What to the American worker, is the Fourth of July, and all its pageantry for freedom and “democracy”? We, the Workers’ Party, answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, this celebration is a sham; the boasted liberty, an unholy license; the national greatness, swelling vanity; the sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; the denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; the shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; the prayers and hymns, sermons and thanksgivings, with all the religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the capitalists of the United States, at this very hour. The scale of the brutalities unleashed upon the American workers horrifies even the reactionaries of British and French Empire. The pages of The Times of London are filled with accounts of the atrocities committed to maintain order in the United States, which are read with horrified fascination by the establishment, unaware that the storm of class warfare that grips the United States will one day engulf the whole of the world.

Under conditions such as these, the Workers Party recognizes the impossibility of winning emancipation through the use of the machinery of the existing government. Nevertheless, the Workers Party realizes the importance of election campaigns in developing the political consciousness of the working class, and that independent political action within the existing government is necessary for revolutionary political action. Therefore, the Workers Party will participate in elections and use them for propaganda and agitation, while holding to the fundamental truth, long forgotten and heard only in whispers, that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments detrimental to their interests.

The Workers’ Republic

The program of the Workers’ Party is a revolutionary one, no less monumental than the American or French Revolution. The Workers’ Party seeks to transform the institutions of administration in the United States based upon the experience of the revolutionary workers in Russia, Hungary and Bavaria. The soviets, or workers’ councils, of these revolutionary surges are the proper organizations of the workers’ power in times of crisis, arising naturally out of previous struggles and the experiences of workers.

The federations of councils, experimented in the great revolutionary upsurge in the United States under the leadership of the Workers’ Party, have proven to be the most effective weapon for democratic liberation by the workers. The Workers’ Party shall make the soviets the basis of the future revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

The existing capitalist government is a dictatorship of the capitalists. Today in the United States a comparatively small group of capitalist-financial and industrial kings control the government of the United States, of the states and municipalities.

The Workers’ Party rejects the hollow mockery that is the bourgeois dictatorship of capitalism and its sham democracy. Through the institution of the true democracy of workers’ power, the working class will maintain its dominance against its enemies, taking hold of the direction of society. The working class as a whole can finally control its own destiny.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat shall at once take from the capitalists their plundered wealth, in the form of the control and ownership of the raw materials and machinery of production which the workers are dependent upon for their life, liberty and happiness, and establish collective ownership.

Together with this collective ownership the Workers’ Republic will as quickly as possible develop the system of self-management of the industries by the workers. Through the establishment of the socialist system of industry the exploited and oppression of the workers will be ended. As the power of the capitalists in industry wanes and the lower stage of communism is established the struggle between the classes will disappear. Through the development of technology and the productive powers of industry, each individual will finally have the freedom to develop his talents to the furthest. And so shall the free development of each be the condition for the free development of all.

The International

The Workers’ Party accepts the principle that the class struggle for the emancipation of the working class is an international struggle. The workers of Russia have been obliged to fight against the whole capitalist world in order to maintain their Soviet government and to win the opportunity of rebuilding their system of production on a socialist basis. In this struggle they have had the support of the organized workers of every country.

The future struggles against capitalism will take the same character. In order to win the final victory in the struggle against world capitalism the working class of the world must be united under one leadership.

The leadership in the international struggle which inspires hope in the hearts of the workers of the world and arouses fear in the capitalists of all nations is the leadership of the Communist International, the fraternal organization of Workers’ parties around the world.

The Workers Party declares once again its sympathy with the principles of the Communist International, and enters the struggle against American capitalism, the most powerful of the national groups, and in doing so it takes up the vanguard of the world struggle against capitalism.

Timeline of the Roaring 20s

1921

January 28: The Italian Communist Party (PCI) is founded in Livorno, as part of the growing split in international socialism.

February 1: In the ongoing Russian Civil War, Bolshevik troops occupy Tblisi. The Menshevik government of the Georgian Democratic Republic is captured, but sporadic fighting continues around the capital and in the countryside.

February 8: Sailors at the Bolshevik controlled Russian naval fort of Kronstadt mutiny. They deliver a list of demands to the Bolshevik government that include increased restrictions on the Cheka secret police, a return to soviet democracy, and free elections, among others.

February 18: The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic is officially declared in Tiblisi. In reality, the government is a puppet of Moscow.

March 4: Leonard Wood is inaugurated president of the United States in Washington DC. Wood is quick to enforce party discipline on the Republicans in the House. His allies in the Cabinet force the resignation of several prominent members of the House Republican Caucus over their opposition to the party’s reform agenda.

March 14: The Kronstadt mutiny is crushed by a force of loyal Cheka volunteers and Red Army officer cadets, demonstrating the severe instability of the Bolshevik government at this point. In Moscow, the Council of People's Commissars formally implements the New Economic Policy.

March 28: The Budgeting and Accounting Act of 1921 is formally ratified by the US government.

April 2: The reparations commission of the League of Nations orders Germany to pay a sum of 130 billion gold marks, in annual installments of 2.5 billion.

April 11: In Britain, the miners, railway, and transportation unions announce the beginning of a strike. The government threatens to suppress the strike with military force.

April 28: Moderate members of Sinn Féin walk out, establishing a new party, Cumann na nGaedheal. As leaders of the Irish business community, and of the current provisional government, they had become alienated with the growing tide of communist radicalism within Sinn Féin.

May 1: In a symbolic act of national reconciliation, President Wood issues a general amnesty to all radicals convicted or deported over violations of the Espionage or Sedition Acts. Eugene Debs, released in an earlier pardon deal, meets with President Wood at the White House to "cordially discuss the national affairs of the United States." Wood's attempts at reconciliation prove to be deeply unpopular within his party.

May 7: With the crushing of the occupying White Army in Mongolia, and the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic, the Soviet Revolutionary Wars are over. Sporadic fighting continues, but organized, effective resistance to the Soviet government ceases.

May 19: First Secretary James Mann passes away from a sudden stroke. President Wood seizes the opportunity to strengthen his hold on the Republican Party by reshuffling the Cabinet, placing noted liberal Leonidas C. Dyer in the position of head of government. In addition, the diumvirate removes William Vare, Secretary of Industrial Coordination, and Charles Hughes, Secretary of State, in favor of James J. Davis and Frank B. Kellog, respectively.

June 4: President Wood formally signs a joint-resolution officially ending the formal state of war between the United States and Germany, Austria and Hungary.

June 18: The Third World Congress of the Comintern begins in Moscow.

July 4: A truce agreement is reached between Britain and the Irish Provisional Government.

July 12: First Secretary Dyer kills Albert Johnson’s Emergency Immigration Act, after consultation with the Cabinet and major business leaders. Restricting immigration at this time, it is felt, would unduly increase the bargaining power of organized labor. Furthermore, the threat of immigrant radicalism is muted by the strength of native radicalism. With continued immigration, native workers may turn against immigrant workers in competition for jobs.

July 29: In Germany, a lowly formal corporal from the German Army signal corps is elected leader of the so-called National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).

August 12: Italian immigrant anarcho-syndicalist organizers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are found guilty of first degree murder and sedition by a Massachusetts jury. Sacco and Vanzetti’s defense accuse the trial of being a kangaroo court, with nothing but circumstantial evidence to support the conviction.

October 1: A peace conference between the United Kingdom and Éire begins in London.

November 7: The National Fascist Party is established in Italy.

December 1: The Irish-British peace conference concludes. Sinn Féin, excluded from the process, immediately condemn the establishment of the Irish Free State as a dominion of the British Empire, incorporating 26 of the 32 counties in Ireland.

1922

January 18: The London Naval Conference begins, hoping to arrest the potential arms race between Britain, America, France and Japan.

March 11: In Mumbai, a young Indian lawyer and independence leader named Mohandas Gandhi is arrested for Sedition.

March 20: The USS Langley (CV-1) is commissioned as the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy.

May 1: In another inroad to reconciliation, President Wood and First Secretary Dyer sign legislation formally declaring May 1st to be a federal holiday, dubbed "International Labor Day". Later that day, Dyer lays out a progressive legislative agenda before the House. The platform contains legislation establishing a fifty-hour standard work week with guaranteed overtime pay, nationalizing the majority of country's railroads, establishing a first ever progressive income tax, creating a national health service and a cabinet level Department of Health, establishing cabinet Departments of Education and Labor, and a law recognizing the right of labor unions to organize. The platform is controversial and ambitious, and a crisis of leadership soon erupts.

May 17: New York becomes the first of five states this year to enact measures changing the apportionment of presidential electors from winner-take-all to a congressional district system.

June 11: President Wood gives the first ever national radio address. In his speech, he urges moderation and reform to fight the tide of class warfare and militancy within the country. In his words, "the choice is reform or revolution; the rascals in on Wall Street would sooner see revolution before tear away their claws from their acquired power."

July 8: The Fordney-McCumber Tarriff act passes the Senate with a 2/3rds majority, completely undercutting President Wood's threatened veto. In an attempt to compromise and push forward his agenda, First Secretary Dyer steers the act through the House.

July 18: The first Republican Party Conference begins in Philadelphia. The party conference drafts a party constitution establishing the Republican Party of the United States of America as a membership organization of state Republican Parties, affiliated political clubs, and the Congressional Republican Party. A standing National Executive Committee is elected at the close of the conference, with President Wood serving as Chairman and First Secretary Dyer as Party Leader.

August 16: A limited version of Dyer's "Progress Platform" is enacted by the US House. It contains provisions establishing a cabinet Department of Education and Labor, regulates food and drug standards via the Department of Industrial Coordination, and establishes a 50 hour standard work week.

October 1: Public Law 67-89 is enacted by the US federal government, opening all federal offices to women.

October 28: The Italian Fascists stage their "March on Rome", steering Benito Mussolini to power. The Constitution is soon suspended, as a general terror campaign begins on enemies of the Fascists. Elsewhere, the Red Army occupies Vladivostok, signalling an end to major fighting in the Russian Civil War.

November 1: UK General elections occur, precipitated by Conservative withdrawal from the National Coalition. The Conservatives win a razor thin majority government.

December 28: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Transcaucasia sign a treaty of union, creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

1923


January 3: At the beginning of the new Senate term, the pro-administration Republicans push through a major revision of the US Senate procedures, reinstating the rules to move the previous question, cutting off the possibility of unlimited debate.

January 8: The US Senate ratifies the London Naval Treaty. The revised treaty places no restrictions on the size or armaments of new capital ships under construction. While no moratorium is placed on production, the treaty successfully limits the total tonnage available for capital ship fleets of the signatories, on a ratio of 5:5:4:2:2 between the US, the UK, Japan, France and Italy respectively. Consequently, US capital ship construction continues as planned in 1920, with 6 Lexington-class battlecruisers joining 6 South Dakota-class battleships in various stages of construction.

February 22: Time magazine debuts in the United States.

March 6: Vladimir Lenin suffers his third stroke, and subsequently retires as Chair of Soviet Government.

March 18: First Secretary Dyer's pet law, making lynching a federal crime punishable by death manages to pass over a Senate filibuster attempt, thanks to Vice-President Calvin Coolidge's deft use of parliamentary tactics to outmanuever Democratic opposition. In the House, the law passes in spite of major opposition within the House Republicans, thanks to the unanimous support of the law by the Worker's Party. Dyer and Wood both agree that this is perhaps the first green shoots of their reform policy.

April 4: The United States recognizes the Republic of Turkey following the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, establishing the countries modern borders and bringing the (legal) end of the Ottoman Empire.

May 8: The World War Adjusted Compensation Act, AKA the Bonus Bill, is signed into law.

June 1: The National Forests are significantly enlarged by the Clarke-McNary Act.

August 2: Warren G. Harding, US Senator, passes away of an apparent heart-attack. With one of the more powerful-conservative voices in the Senate absent, the Wood faction of the Republican Party neuters the ability of the Senate to hamstring the Cabinet.

October 30: British Prime Minister Bonar Law dies in office from an upper GI tract infection, later revealed to be a complication from throat cancer. He is succeeded by Stanley Baldwin.

November 8: Adolf Hitler begins the ultimately unsuccessful Beer-Hall Putsch.

1924

January 21: Vladimir Lenin passes away, leaving an immense leadership vacuum within the Bolshevik Party.

January 27: Petrograd is renamed Leningrad; Lenin's body is embalmed and interred in a mausoleum against his explicit wishes.

February 16: The United Kingdom formally recognizes the USSR. The US, under President Wood's directive, soon follows suit.

March 8: The Castle Gate mine disaster in kills over one hundred miners in Utah, prompting major outcries for mine-safety across the US. Across the US, the National Guard is called out to suppress miner's strikes.

March 20: As Eugene Debs, in ailing health, steps down from his position as General Secretary of the Workers’ Party, the Politburo places C.E. Ruthenberg as the provisional head of the party until the next National Convention.

April 1: Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years in jail for his participation in the Beer Hall Putsch. He serves only 9 months.

April 7: In a rigged election, the Italian Fascists cement a 2/3rds control of the Italian Parliament.

May 8: Debate begins in the US Congress over the formation of a national investigatory police.

July 1: The National Bureau of Investigation is founded. J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the head of the undersized, underfunded institution with investigatory authority only over the distribution of subversive literature, condoms and pornography across state lines.

August 6: An act of Congress is passed, granting all Native Americans within the territorial boundaries of the United States full citizenship rights.

October 27: The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic formally joins the USSR.

November 4: United States General Election: President Wood is re-elected by a comfortable margin, while a Republican government is returned in the House of Representatives.

December 11: Sun Yat-sen’s Goumindang allies with the Comintern and the Communist Party of China.

1925

January 8: Benito Mussolini assumes dictatorial powers in Italy.

February 18: The Worker's Party sponsored national newspaper, The Daily Worker, reaches parity with The New York Times in circulation.

March 4: President Wood is inaugurated President for his second term.

March 8: The American section of the Young Communist International, the Young Communist League of America, holds its first national convention in New York. Essentially a political, urban Boy Scouts, the group becomes an important facet of inner city life quickly after its founding.

April 8: F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes his (eventually) famous novel, Under Red, White and Blue, to mixed critical reception and moderate commercial success.

May 1: Turn out at annual May Day parades and demonstrations is a disappointment this year. The steadily growing economy and reduced unemployment have in many ways deflated militancy on the Left. The Worker's Party and the Solidarity labor union face the first decline in total membership after almost two decades of steady growth in membership.

May 17: National news suddenly turns to a small town in Iowa, over a teacher's defiance of state's anti-evolution law. The impending trial is expected to have national ramifications.

July 4: Independence Day celebrations across the country suddenly turn very somber, as news spreads of an assassination attempt on President Wood. The lone gunmen is killed while attempting escape. Wood, already in poor health, is gravely wounded by two shots to the chest from the assassin's revolver.

July 11: Herbert Hoover is sworn in as President. Due to a miscommunication about President Wood's death, Hoover is accidently sworn in almost a full hour before the President's passing. Due to this, and other unsightly coincidences in the affair, conspiracy theories begin to form around the assassination in later years.

August 1: The National Revenue Act of 1925 is signed into law by President Hoover. The Act greatly reduced federal income taxes across the board, especially on higher incomes. The federal government still maintains a modest surplus after the tax reductions, allowing the government to continue retiring some of the war debt from the First World War.

August 18: In the USSR, Leon Trotsky resigns his position in Sovnarkom as the People's Commissar for War, under mounting criticism within the party over, among other things, his earlier criticism of Zinoviev and Kamanev as well as his thesis on permanent revolution.

October 3: A Congressional joint resolution authorizing a constitutional amendment to ban the production, sale and distribution of alcohol is soundly defeated. The Prohibition movement begins a long, slow death in American politics, lingering in some areas for decades but losing most if not all of the former national attention it had received.

October 25: Walter Francis White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, cautiously endorses the Workers Party's new emphasis on anti-segregation and anti-racism. W.E.B. Du Bois, Publications Director for the NAACP, is not so tepid. He begins publishing a series of essays in Crisis, the NAACP journal, championing an alliance between "the forces of labor liberation and the forces of Negroe liberation"

December 11: At the Fourteenth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the Troika between Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev disintegrates. Zinoviev and Kamanev criticize Stalin over the increasingly dictatorial nature of his leadership of the Party. Stalin, now allied with Bukharin, Molotov and Kalinin, begins strengthening his grip on the Politburo.

1926

January 16: A BBC radio play about a worker's revolution causes a panic in London, dramatically revealing the great tension between labor and capital in the UK.

February 4: Eugene Debs, five time presidential candidate and spiritual leader of the American socialist movement, passes away in his sleep. With the unifying force of Debs gone, many fear that the Workers Party will soon splinter.

April 28: A coal miner's strike begins in Britain. The conflict soon boils over into a full general strike. While the labor's taking to the streets is far short of a revolution in progress, the quick degeneration of the situation proves that fears of labor uprising are not totally without merit.

May 14: The British general strike ends with a negotiated settlement.

July 17: The Automobile Worker's Union is founded in Detroit, Michigan.

August 1: President Hoover cautiously endorses First Secretary Gilett's proposal for legislation that would, in effect, legitimate the existence of industrial unions and enforce collective bargaining contracts. With unions entrenched in every major American industry, the need for arbitration becomes manifestly apparent.

October 11: A decree issued by Mussolini's government in Italy orders the arrest of all parliamentary deputies of the Italian Communist Party.

October 14: The Labor Standards Act, legitimating industrial unionism, passes the U.S. House 287-111. However, the legislation faces an uncertain fate in the more aristocratic Senate.

December 1: Compromise deals over the Labor Standards Act fail, resulting in the defeat of the Act 36-58 in the Senate. In response, the House votes on a constitutional amendment resolution to strip powers from the US Senate. Gilett hopes that the controversy, and the threat of a constitutional convention called by the states, might give the Senate reason to reconsider. Ultimately, the controversy goes nowhere.

1927

February 1: Norman Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister and New York City councilman, is elected to the US House in a by-election. A powerful orator and an enthusiastic activist, he quickly becomes a powerful figure in New York labor politics.

May 17: Charles Lindbergh, a daring airmail pilot, is pronounced missing and presumed dead, after his plane fails to arrive in Great Britain. An attempt at the first solo flight across the Atlantic will not be made again for several months.

June 1: In the USSR, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, former adversaries, form a United Opposition against Stalin's growing hegemony in the Communist Party.

June 8: Actor William Haines, the number one box office draw of the year, openly discusses his homosexuality and his relationship with his partner Jimmie Shields in an interview with the Daily Worker. The national news attention following is more one of curiosity than condemnation.

July 16: American troops are deployed to China to protect vital American commercial interests.

October 6: The silent film era ends with the release of The Jazz Singer.

November 8: Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev are formally expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky and his associates refuse to capitulate, and soon face the prospect of internal exile.

December 6: The Soviet Communist Party, at its Fifteenth Congress, issues an official edict condemning all deviation from the party line. Josef Stalin is effectively undisputed master of the Soviet state.

1928

January 30: Leon Trotsky is arrested by State Security. He assumes a state of passive resistence, and is exiled to Alma Ata in the following month.

March 2: In accordance with "Third Period" Comintern policies, the Workers Party of America adopts the name "Workers’ Communist Party".

April 4: Max Eastman, editor of the Daily Worker, publishes an article in the paper in support of Leon Trotsky, and heavily criticizes Josef Stalin's growing leadership cult. Calls by the Comintern for his expulsion from the party begin almost immediately.

May 4: Aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic.

June 18: American troops stationed in China begin a general withdrawal.

July 2: A papal edict is issued, aimed at the growing involvement of US Catholics with the socialist movement. It harshly condemns socialism and laborism, and instead encourages humility and charity as an alternative. Known members of the Workers Party are to be explicitly denied communion.

August 6: First Secretary Gilett publicly announces his retirement from leadership of the Republican Party and from politics in general. Majority Leader Nicholas Longworth is elected to head the government for the remainder of the Congress.

November 6: US general election. President Hoover is reelected to a second term, and Republican Party returns a solid majority in the House of Representatives. Cooperation between the President and the First Secretary is expected to be high.

December 18: In one of its last acts, the lameduck 68th Congress approves construction of a hydroelectric dam in the Boulder Canyon on the Colorado River.

1929

February 11: Leon Trotsky, along with his wife and son, is expelled from the USSR, to Istanbul, Turkey.

March 4: Herbert Hoover is sworn into his second term as President. Nicholas Longworth forms a Republican majority government.

1. One of the great things about writing in character is that you can explore the interactions of various points of view. In this case, the (fictional) writer, a British author with no sympathy for socialism or revolution, is mischaracterizing Patton, who was no proletarian by any stretch of the imagination. But hey, it’s a snappy title, likely to sell lots of copies among military buffs in the Franco-British Union.
 
The Great Depression

"...
the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it...
" - Oscar Wilde​
Overview

“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
-Irving Fisher

The Roaring Twenties, as they’d been called, had been revered as a new Golden Age of Civilization. The growth of science, the arts, education and standards of living across Europe and the United States had been unprecedented in history. The Weimar Republic, in spite of difficulties imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, had presided over an age of tolerance, humanism and culture envied the world over. Britain and France had recovered much of their strength, depleted from the trenches of the First World War. The colonies remained mostly docile. And the United States, the continued revolutions in the arts promised to transform the dull drudgery of daily life for all time. Radio and cinema became the new universal language, and new developments in a strange scientific contraption called a “television” promised to bring the cinema to the home within a decade or two.

But the Golden Age was not to last. It would soon collapse under its own internal stresses. The dreamers of the Roaring Twenties were abruptly woken up on Thursday, February 6th, 1930. What had seemed like a normal business cycle abruptly accelerated. In the panic on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a record 14 million shares were traded on Black Thursday.

Though the actions of a few high profile investors had temporarily averted panic that day, the news of the growing crisis continued to spread across the United States. The panic could not be contained. The following Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 45 points (12 percent). The panic only continued the next day, losing a further 14 percent that Tuesday.

The Stock Market Crash of 1930 would become the opening act of what would be known the world over as “The Great Depression”. The Great Depression would herald a decade of despair and revolution. Empires and republics alike would topple under the weight of the economic collapse. Fascism rise to power in Europe, ravaging the world with horrors never matched in all of human history.

Governments would soon scramble to contain the crisis. In the United States, a controversial tariff, the Smoot-Hawley Act, was reluctantly signed into law by President Hoover in June of 1930. The Act not only contained the largest increases in tariffs ever proposed, but also contained measures effectively outlawing trade unions, which had been tolerated but never fully endorsed by the federal government since the First World War. International trade would soon grind to a near halt, and the act further inflamed the seething tensions between capital and labor.

August of 1930 would see a wave of major bank failures in the United States. The faltering of credit and finance was followed quickly by deflation. The Federal Reserve and the Longworth Government were unable and unwilling to abandon the Gold Standard, and through a combination of ill-advised action by the former and inaction by the latter, the money supply would only further contract in 1931. The ensuing deflationary spiral and new waves of bank failures deepened the crisis.

The crisis originated in the United States, and ultimately the U.S. was among the nations hardest hit by the Great Depression. By the time the Depression reached its nadir in June of 1933, industrial production had fallen by almost 50 percent. Half of the 25,000 banks in the United States had failed. GDP fell by 40.2 percent. Total unemployment reached a high of 28 percent, and non-farm employment unreached 43 percent. Over 1 million families lost their farms, and average family income fell by almost half.

The nadir of the Great Depression would coincide with the fall of Washington D.C. during the brief Second American Civil War and the rise of the Nazis to absolute power in Germany.

The preceding excerpt was from the introduction of a chapter titled “The Great Depression and the Revolution” from a generic high school American history textbook, circa 1988.

Excerpts from Mike Macnair, The Seizure of state power by the American proletariat, (Glasgow, UK: Morning Star, 1997). (Illuminatus Primus)

The nature of the communist revolution, as explained by Marx and Engels, requires: first that the workers form themselves into a party, distinct from and independent of, all other classes and their parties, and that this class party wage an unceasing struggle to conquer political power for the working class. The working-class, of course, is both product and part of the development of the capitalist mode of production, and thus exists at the level of the world-market and world-history of capital first and foremost. The struggle of the world-proletariat against world-capital necessarily resolves in the dictatorship of the world-proletariat over and against world-capital, and the subsequent abolition of all classes. The beginning of the end of the class war was unleashed with the end of the First World War, the earliest sign of the death agony of capitalism. The first battles of the class war of manœuvre[1] were inclusive, even Pyrrhic struggles. But with the insurrection of North America's workers, the first decisive victories in the war of manœuvre were won, and the first beachheads secured.

This is a short overview of that process.

The workers’ class party in America was composed of revolutionary maximalist sections of the parliamentary Workers’ (Communist) Party of America, the so-called “direct unionist” wing of the International Workers’ Solidarity Union, and a number of ad hoc and subsidiary “spontaneist” movements, such as the factory council/shop-steward movement and the so-called “standing strike committees” and “ward committees of workers’ defense” which formed the prototype of the revolutionary soviets and community assemblies. Since the end of World War I, the formalist parliamentarian party-movements associated with the Second International and founded in pattern after the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands...

The division of the party by faction in the 1920s had nearly led to its splitting. The Reform-Coalitionists (known as Revisionist Right by the Left) nearly split the party in the election of 1928. Such a split might have been inevitable, that the only major country without a social democratic party would finally get one. But barely a year after the election, the already troubled state of the American proletariat turned precarious when stock market crash in 1930 heralded a new age of crisis. This all-but-repudiated short-term opportunism.

The greatest capitalisers on the new wave of discontent were the DeLeonist-Debsist or so-called Orthodox (called Center by the Left) faction, who supported party unity and party heterogeneity over all, as well as an open parliamentary road. Nonetheless, the DeLeonist-Communist (also called the Left) and the Ultra-Left (which maintained an ambiguous relationship with the party institutions—they often could and did participate in district and factory party cells and conferences, but opposed most of the apparatus and its parliamentary designs) built informal but it would turn out, extremely important factory-floor and neighborhood networks of revolutionary militants, and arguably in the nadir of 1931-32 of the crash, were the second most influential party faction.

In terms of international affinity, the Right sympathized most closely with the Vienna International and left social democratic parties, while the Center sympathized with the Bukharinist Right, the Left with the Trotskyist Left, and the Ultra-Left with the council communists and Italian communist left expelled from the Comintern (though they justified their partial entryism in the W(C)PA with reference to the unique form of the American party and peculiar American conditions).

The period following 1927 was that of greatest alienation from the Comintern leadership, where the American party, in all its factions, had essentially rejected the Third Period policy or judged it not relevant to the American conditions (for instance, no proper social democratic party existed with the reabsorption of the left-wing of the Independent Socialist Labor Party when the WPA belatedly adopted the United Front tactic in 1925; the former ISLP formed the core of the Right).[2] In spite of all odds and circumstances, the American parliamentary party remained true to the Debsian “united front party” constitution he had originally built between the Kautskyian/municipal socialist pan-left and DeLeon’s impossibilists, with the latter in programmatic, organizational, and agitational command, and the former tasked with party-building, filling out local elective office, and building a parliamentary faction.

The ultra-left period of 1931 saw factory occupations and the beginning of strike-committee movements. The ‘councilist’ wing of the Ultra-Left and ‘Luxembourgist’ wing of the Left began circulating agitation for forming a government of workers’ councils. Ultimately the strike waves subsided slightly, and fearing repression, the Right and Center formed a pact to organize for parliamentary victory at a tactic of first resort, and Rightists begin secret negotiations with members of the ISLP Right and the reformists in the Democratic and Republican Parties, the fruit of which is the Non-Partisan League and Farmer-Labor fusionist and populist formations. The Right is determined to avoid an insurrection, which they regard as putschist and disastrous for the movement, and fear the possibility of provoking a repression like that of the Two Red Years of 1917-1919 in light of their seeming resurrection in 1930-31.

In its negotiations, the Right sought military, juridical, and industry support for the possibility of a W(C)PA victory in the election of 1932. It promised that the Cabinet will seat reformist Democrats and Republicans (albeit with no promises in the key departments), that major legislation will have to have tri-partisan support, and that they will not support attempts to purge the senior state bureaucracy or officer corps or federal courts, or pack the Supreme Court. As a carrot, the Right revolted against the W(C)PA’s attempt to filibuster the confirmation of MacArthur as Secretary of War, demonstrating that in the event of a parliamentary victory, they expected to be able to command at least simple majority support of the full-time cadre and bureaucrats in the IWSU and Party apparat, and were demonstrating in principle their respect for the division of power within the bourgeois republic.[3]

This led nearly to a revolt by the Left, but once more the Center holds. The line of battle is drawn though, with the Left faction making it clear they will split the party, electoral victory or not, should the leadership betray the party charter that the party shall not enter government unless it possesses decisive majority political support from the working-class and tacit support from a plurality of the population for implementing the minimum program; this was a sticking point, given that the Right had in principle essentially promised to do exactly that, and the Center seemed possibly prepared to put party-unity in the abstract over all other principles. 1932 was a period of suppressed conflict in the W(C)PA, as the party got into gear as a single force to win the election with a majority. The Ultra-Left at this point declared that the party was not a reliable instrument of working-class power, but its factional organization could not coalesce clearly around slogans of split, abstention, critical support for the W(C)PA electoral campaign, or otherwise. This political paralysis on programmatic grounds was juxtaposed with their deepening roots in the multiplicity of factory, ward, urban, and ad hoc workers’ organizations which had matured and developed organically since mid-1930.

The Left and Ultra-Left concentrated on a nascent movement of “Workers’ conferences,” uniting Solidarity “direct unionists,” the shop-steward and factory council movements in several industries, and the “ward committees of workers’ defense.” In contrast, the party apparat sought to bureaucratize and centralize the shells of the 1931 pan-urban general strike committees into “standing strike committees,” ostensibly pro-soviet but in essence conceived as a means to be a conveyer belt from shopfloor and street militancy to canalization in party institutions. However, these organizations would be fatefully transformed in the strike waves of late 1932 and early 1933.

As 1932 rolls on, the party appeared ever more hegemonic, but paradoxically at the expense of unity. More and more the party tendentially bifurcates into a formative left social democratic, Kautskyist formation, and on the other hand, something of a fusion between orthodox DeLeonist impossibilism and the Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partie Deutschlands (KAPD) in the Germany in the early 1920s.

The Ultra-Left used the early electoral signs as a signal to prepare for insurrection, and a number of factory occupations, marches, and strikes instigated erupt in Dec-Jan 1932-3. The lame-duck government responded by criminalizing insurrectionary speech, which shores up the Right and Center while driving the Left and particularly Ultra-Left underground and into local organization. The Right forces through party elections in January right after the repression of insurrectionary speech, allowing it to take a commanding plurality over party offices.

[1] An schematic concept from Antonio Gramsci distinguishing the actual adjoining of active class war in the heat of a revolutionary situation with the long-term ‘party-building’ and ‘strategy of patience’ during relative class peace, the “war of position.”

[2]The right-wing of the ISLPA itself collapsed into three strands, all sects—the party-builders attempt to build a left social democratic party independent and against the Comintern party, rather unsuccessfully. The other two are those who entry into the conciliationist left-wing of the Republican Party as a pressure group, focusing on parliamentary reforms. The other entries into the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party but focused less on expecting to draw out parliamentary reformism through the Democratic splinterists in the short-term than hoping to aid the destruction of the reactionary Democratic core in the long-term and committing itself to “pure and simple unionism.”

[3]This is an analogue to Salvador Allende, leader of the Unidad Popular and President in Chile, who actually ironically appointed Pinochet as Chief of Staff of the Army, and sought to avoid the arming of workers prior to the putsch by his own appointee resulting in his death.

 
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The Calm Before the Storm

The Golden Path is dangerous...it is the choice I couldn't make, the desert storm that cannot be stopped. You will become that storm...the whirlwind. And nothing will be able to stop you. Not even yourself.
~Muad'ib, Children of Dune

A review of the 18
th National Convention of the Workers' Communist Party

The last pre-revolution party congress began on 29 April 1932. In that raining spring day, delegates from across the United States gathered in New York City's Madison Square Garden. As one of the few venues large enough to host the convention, this brought the party's organizers into very capitalist business negotiations with the Garden's very conservative owners. Only after lengthy negotiations, and due to the fact that the Depression had gutted the Garden's business was the venue secured for a reasonable rate.

The exercise of mass party democracy had overwhelmed the efforts of the “Big Names” to really control the agenda. 1928's party congress had been subdued, almost bourgeois. But in the intervening four years, where workers had endured Depression conditions even before the stock markets went tumbling down, no one was left with much desire to remain respectable.

Gone were the suits and ties. The centrists and rightists in the party locals had been sternly rebuked. The rank and file of the party now filled the delegate slate, ten thousand workers from all walks of life hopped trains, hitch-hiked or car-pooled their way to the Big Apple.

The slogan on the convention floor was quickly becoming “Strike while the iron is hot”. The mood was revolutionary, and many felt that the party's victory in the November elections would only be one part of an all-out assault against capitalism. The party's membership rolls had practically exploded in the past few years, and organizers had done an incredible job proselytizing. New locals from all across America, even in the Deep South, had been chartered and sent delegates to the convention.

Still, there were numerous issues to be settled. The slate of Congressional candidates had to be approved, the party platform adopted, and most importantly, the leadership candidates would have to be selected. The most important of which would be the man who would run for president; he may very well be the party's first president, and if a peaceful, democratic changing of the guard was to occur, the right man for the job would need to be selected.

Numerous organizational fights filled the first days. The credentials committee was waylaid by a fierce row over delegates sent by the recently reabsorbed locals of the former Independent Socialist Labor Party. Haywood, the fiery national chairman of the party-affiliated Solidarity trade union federation, led a campaign to exclude key members from the “social fascist” grouping from taking part in the convention, though his own private letters reveal that this tactic was less earnest and more a bid to stall for time to ensure that all the members of his ultra-left faction would arrive for the convention. Nevertheless, there was a real anxiety about letting even left social democrats of the Vienna International into a revolutionary workers' party.

The real business did not begin until the morning of 5 May. The various factions were well organized by this time, and the few unaffiliated delegates had been gobbled up into one camp or another. The first real debates was over the party's stance going into the election. The ultra-left sought to immediately begin a transition to a government of workers' councils, focusing all of the party's efforts leading up to and after the election for imminent social revolution. They submitted a draft for the party programme that was clearly calculated to be impossible to implement without revolution. The state would be reorganized along syndicalist lines, all property would be nationalized for redistribution, and whatever was left of the state, if you could even call it that after they were done with it, would be the provision of an extensive cradle-to-the-grave welfare state.

The left, to many's surprise, had shifted it's camp to endorse much of the revolutionary confrontation rhetoric coming out of Haywood, Mattick and Marcantonio's camp. John Reed, whose own revolutionary credentials were impeccable, give a four hour speech outlining a maximalist approach, a more “tempered” version of revolution. Though the electoral victory would primarily be a shield to the real revolutionary thrust in the streets, the maximalist vision began and ended by quoting Abraham Lincoln: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

In effect, the left chose a careful balance between revolutionary practice and reconciliation. A “Nelson Mandela approach” to social revolution, if you will. They united around a set of proven leaders: Reed the charismatic leader, Upton Sinclair the elder statesmen, Haim Kantorovich the theoretician, and William Z. Foster the pragmatic enforcer.

The center, Moscow's favorite and reeling from the continued rebuke of total adherence to Comintern general doctrine, took a much more passive role in the convention. The groups former leader, the ex-General Secreatary C.E. Ruthenberg, had recently been forced into resignation for being Stalin's errand boy, and though the center still in theory held the national leadership through Earl Browder, in practice they had been heavily compromised. The party's rebuke of the Comintern's Third Period policy of confrontation to other left-wing forces had heavily damaged the center, and under Browder's leadership their position nuanced. In a country where there were no large “social fascist” groupings, such confrontation would be irrelevant.

The center adopted, with modifications, the left's call for a “united front” of all working-class political groups in the upcoming political contests. With muted protest from the ultra-left, the party established an electoral grouping called “the Popular Front” in preparation for the November elections. Though European leftists would adopt the nomenclature later, in practice these later popular fronts had very different internal dynamics. The European fronts were largely defensive anti-fascist coalitions, composed of left-liberals, social democrats, and socialists/communists, and in practice the revolutionary parties held a junior role, and were often excluded from major decision-making.

The American Popular Front in 1932, however, placed the revolutionary workers' party in a commanding role. The reformists of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party joined a junior role, as did the various Non-Partisan Leagues in some of the states. The Popular Front would run a single presidential ticket, and organize a slate of legislative and gubernatorial candidates to maximize the potential control of the US Congress and of the state governments.

With this in mind, the party would compromise. In the balloting for the Presidential nomination, the obvious candidates (Haywood, Sinclair, Browder) were pushed to the way side by the party whips, and the dark-horse candidacy of Norman Thomas came out with a strong majority on the seventh ballot.

Norman Thomas was an atypical party member. As a Presbyterian minister, he stood out immensely in a mass party where even the rank and file were increasingly professing atheism (whatever their private thoughts on God were). Thomas was also an atypical Marxist (or not a Marxist at all, as his opponents accused), turning less to scientific socialism for inspiration than the potential revolutionary humanism of Marx's early writings and the great promises of the early, heady days of the Bolshevik Revolution. He sought inclusivity, avoiding the bitterness of factional debates in favor of a common revolutionary program that could appeal even to social democrats and disaffected liberals.

In that sense, he was the perfect man to rally behind, a veritable second coming of the late Grandfather Debs, and someone who friend and foe alike could agree that he was absolutely earnest in professing a belief in universal Christian love of neighbor and foe alike.

A revolution with Thomas at the head would be the perfect campaign of American exceptionalism, a velvet revolution that succeeded through love and compassion, accomplished at the ballot box and negotiation table, not at the barricades and battlefields.

That moment of unity started to sour quite early after the triumphant end of the national convention. Everyone did some sobering up, and returned to advancing their factional agendas, though at a clearly reduced pace and visibility. The right and center quietly reached across the aisle to the Republicans and Democrats who were increasingly sure of an incredible shellacking at the polls that there would be a place for them in the brave new world of socialism. The left soured at their increasingly loss of control over the party's Congressional caucus, and sought to prepare an eventual revolt of the backbenchers should the new revolutionary government make too many compromises, and the ultra-left made preparations for direct action in the face of a reactionary counterattack they were sure would come.

The other parties

Heading into the 1932 election, the Republican Party was in total crisis. The thought of defeat, let alone a crushing one, had hitherto been unthinkable. Now it was a dangerous possibility. The Great Depression presented them with a calamity they could neither understand nor resolve. Though the Republican Party under the late Leonard Wood had striven to become an ersatz social democratic party, distributing reforms and welfare to the poor in times of plenty, they had done so in a tenuous, reactionary manner. All reaction and no theory, and this led them astray following a conventional wisdom that no longer had any bearing on reality.

Though Hoover had delivered on a few key promises, like ending child labor, improving workplace safety, and nationalizing the long exploitative railroads, his policy towards the crisis was startlingly conventional. Counter-cyclical policy was a position quickly yielded by his party to the Communists, and by the time he tried to take it back, it was half-measures that were too little, too late.

The Republican congressional majority and Cabinet remained committed to balanced budgets, and a monetary orthodoxy of "sound money." They had provided the conditions for the Depression with a decade of wage depression and financial speculation, and continued to ensure the rot spread.

Bank failure and contractionary monetary policy led to a deflationary spiral in which every act by debtors to reduce their debt would perversely only lead to the real value of their debt burden increasing, crushing business confidence. Attempts to restore business confidence through economic nationalism only ignited trade wars that sapped away the few early gains provided by protectionism. And the continual balancing of the budget, by raising taxes, cutting expenses, or selling federal assets (including part of the recently nationalized rail system) further weakened aggregate demand and sabotaged business confidence further.

Early inaction conceded the initiative to the Workers' Party opposition. The half-hearted and hamfisted later responses further confirmed, in the eyes of the public at large and in particular disillusioned rank and file Republicans, that the Communists were on to something that the establishment was just too stupid and rigid to see.

So amongst the chaos of a party losing touch with reality and tearing itself apart, the leadership clamped down on dissent and clung to orthodoxy. Hoover was renominated, and each coming week, as the lines of the unemployed and the Hoovervilles grew, the Republicans proclaimed that the end of the Depression was “just around the corner.”

In the Democratic Party camp, similar turmoil had set in. The Democrats had been disastrously weakened by the total loss of the Northern vote to the Workers' Party, and split of the populists into the DFL. The Democrats had essentially ended as a national political force, and it looked like even in their home territory of the South, they were going to be hunted to extinction by Republican backed splinter parties, the DFL threatening to take control of the Democratic base, and the communists slowly organizing the black and industrial worker vote.

Only the timely arrival of the Great Depression had put this process on hold. The Republican aligned Patriotic League had collapsed into bankruptcy after the 1930 state level elections, giving welcome breathing room. However, this would only yield greater troubles, as this brief respite threw the future of the party into question.

Enter Huey Long, the charismatic Governor of Louisiana. Huey Long was, at first glance, an ordinary if populist leaning Democrat, but he quickly shattered all expectations. He turned on the Bourbon establishment in his own state, cooperating with the DFL and even the Communists to bring his populist agenda to bear fruit. Over the reluctance of his own core supporters, he pushed an end to voting restrictions in his own state, yielding a core of black communist voters willing to compromise on the state level agenda.

With the coming of the Depression, he successfully weathered the storm, continuing to build roads, bridges, and public schools in his own state. And in 1932, he sought to correct the Democratic Party's greatest mistake, a slide into Bourbon orthodoxy that resulted in the split. He would settle for nothing less than a total conquest of whatever was left of the Democratic Party. And at the raucous national convention in Atlanta, his delegates and some keen opportunists handed the Democratic Party nomination for President.

Long's candidacy would further decimate Republican hopes as his campaign expanded out of the South. The Democratic Party, which had lost ballot access in most Northern states after 1920, returned with what seemed like a vengeance. Lauded by new converts as the last, best hope to prevent a communist takeover, in practice Long succeeded in only peeling off voters from the Republican Party in the North.

Republicans, who had already lost decisive control of redistricting in 1930's state elections, would be forced to contest an election that was no longer weighted in their favor, hemorrhaging voters to both other parties, and with depressed turnout in its core ranks.

Vote Early, and Vote Often: The Election

The 1932 general election campaign was the longest and most intense campaign season for both major parties yet recorded. Everyone knew how much was at stake for both camps, and without accurate polling data, the prospect of victory was uncertain for either camps.

Assuredly, The Daily Worker predicted landslide victories for Thomas as often as The New York Times predicted landslide victories for Hoover. Sometimes, they even cited surveys to support their predictions, but doubtlessly, such surveys would be laughed at by any modern statistician.

Hoover, at any rate, knew how much trouble he and his party were in. His back door plea to controversial Democratic Party presidential nominee Huey Long to drop out of the race to avoid splitting the anti-communist vote was met with Long's explicit indifference to whether capitalism or socialism was the order of the day in the United States.

Thomas and Sinclair toured the country by train, delivering speeches to unemployed (and workers desperately hanging onto their jobs) in every state. It was the first ray of hope in what had been a very long night. Everywhere, they preached the gospel of worker control of the means of production, full-employment, universal pensions, and a planned economy. And this was not a program of empty hope, for the early victories in 1930 in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota had implemented a limited version of the general program on the state level, to considerable success.

Results

1932 election results.PNG

1932 election results.PNG
 
Some updates for the revised version of the TL for your perusal before I post them to Finished Timelines & Scenarios. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Excerpts from the AH.com discussion thread "Taking an American political history course"


Admiral Sanders said:
A lot of my followers on both sides of the Atlantic have wanted me to do an American focused political timeline, and well you guys may get your wish. I've managed to weasel my way into a graduate level American politics seminar as an undergrad, which I am particularly proud of, and the first few sessions have been quite enlightening.

First impressions: this is more complicated than I thought. I figured I had a pretty good hand on how American institutions work, but I realized that my knowledge has hitherto been entirely coloured with an IR perspective, that just edits out a lot of detail that probably isn't relevant. I guess on the whole I got the perspective that things were more static than they actually are.

We've been discussing it from a historical perspective, as a set of evolving institutions, so right now the material we're reading is all about the Revolution and the period immediately following. There's so many names and places to remember, and I have to agree with the tutor, they're all an important part of the puzzle.

Probably the biggest epiphany that I've been realizing (and this has forced me to abandon entirely the first draft of a TL), is that I've been thinking of leadership all wrong. I think it's something we all do over here. Because there are enough superficial similarities in structure between the government of the FBU and the UASR, we tend to map things on to each other when it's inappropriate: the Cabinet = the Central Committee, the Prime Minister = the Premier, the House of Commons = the CPD, the Monarch = the Presidium.

I don't know how I feel about the differences, but I at least know that they are there. Unlike our Prime Minister, who carries the weight of popular authority, and seeks to actively cultivate a personal relationship with the public and a commanding role over his party and his cabinet, the American premier seems to be much more a first among equals. Cabinet ministers just don't have the independence and interdependence that they do in the American system.

In this respect, in America it's much more like the old way of doing things in the UK, before the Second World War and the Entente.

What also strikes me is just how unlikeable they all are, from a French or British perspective. I just can't imagine people like Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Tom Kahn, Bayard Rustin, or Malcolm Little being major leaders in an environment like the FBU. Too uncompromising, too much by-whatever-means-necessary politicking, which would scream of corruption and smoke-filled rooms here.
LeninsBeard said:
You can't resist the wheel of history, genosse.(1) We'll make a good commie out of you yet.
tongue.gif


But in all seriousness, I understand. The FBU comparative politics course I took last year kicked my ass. I went in thinking I could cruise through, but the similarities were too deceptive, and it was hard to actually think about how your system is supposed to work, and the normative justifications behind it.

BTW, what are you reading for the course?
TacticalNuclearPenguin said:
Even with detente, it must be incredibly hard to deal with the stigma that results from such education. The establishment and Middle England already view universities as fifth columns (along with Scots, Welsh, and Asians), so taking an active interest in the enemy is always viewed with suspicion. The whole field of "Sovietology" (never understood that term) is torn between the extremes of pro and anti-communism, and chain emails are filled with lurid tales of how good patriots go into these programs and come out Reds thanks to the communist subversion of our universities
Ubermunch said:
I think it's just because no one could come up with a better term for the cross-disciplinary study of the enemy's politics, culture and economy. It's often called "American studies" or "Soviet studies", etc., but that's just a mouthful so the broad category "Sovietology" usually prevails.
AdmiralSanders said:
More or less what Ubermunch said. And to answer LeninsBeard's questions, I must say I can't thank the prof enough for this, but nearly all of the course resources are available online, for free. We've been reading a lot of journal articles, and if they're published in the Comintern sphere, they're freely available to everyone.

This has really lightened the load on my pocketbook. We're also reading some chapters from books, including Hannity's door stopper History of the Workers' Vanguard, plus Albert and Hahnel's Socialism Past and Present. Which I purchased anyway, because they seem like great resources and I just like the feel of a real book.

If I had to categorize them, I'd say that broadly they are divided into an orthdox and a revisionist camp. The big question seems to be how to divide up "periods" in history and whether they actually matter.

We're at the eve of the Revolution currently, and it's been really enlightening. It's hard to go from viewing Communism as a monolith to a more nuanced perspective. What strikes me is the clarity of revisionist scholarship, looking at this period with a microscope. I guess I'm inclined to agree with them: as a whole, the Workers' Party had no idea what it was doing going into 1932.

The factional war suddenly mattered in a huge way. The party was probably going to be in power after the November election, and very few could agree what to do. Still haven't found a good POD for a TL yet, but if you have any suggestions I am all ears.
LeninsBeard said:
The problem is that there are so many, especially since every school kid spent their youth leaning about and commemorating the events and personages of the Revolution. So there's been a lot of pop-alt history.

Averting the revolution is the most common trope. The Man in the High Castle used that as its POD, and painted a dystopian world where America is an economically subservient fascistoid state, and the Nazis dominate the world along with their British allies. Michael Z. Williamson, on the other hand, paints a rather rosy liberal(2) world of Zeppelins, space travel and "freedom" in The Victorious & Free.

Just...don't bother. It's been done to death. There are other decent PODs that haven't been explored as much. A couple off the top of my head: averting Foster being deposed by the Center and Right, which lead to him getting kicked upstairs to the Senate, and crucially, leaving the capital; IOTL his escaping imprisonment or execution left him as one of the most important figures in the party, and he was one of the drivers in pushing the party to go for all out revolution.

Or, you could have no alliance between the WCP and DFL going into the election, which would have some interesting butterflies. The First Cultural Revolution had a lot of controversial decisions that were only pushed through on the insistence and horsetrading of some influential people in the Politburo and the Central Committee; The continuation of the Red Terror after the end of the the civil war is the first to spring to mind. Hell, the decision to use terror was always controversial.
An overview of the Workers' Party on the Eve of the Revolution

Understanding the Revolution is very much a matter of demographics. Under the 1930 US census, approximately 129 million people resided within the continental United States. Of that population, 88.4 percent identified as "White" on the census, 9.8 percent identified as "Negro", with the remainder divided between such dubious categories as "Mexican", "Indian", "Chinese" and "Japanese".

Of that population, the minorities are significantly undercounted, particularly in the South. And the category of "White" too is misleading, concealing vast differences in economics, politics, and culture of different "White nationalities".

In 1932, the Party had 3.1 million registered members in good standing. The Party established itself as a broad tent in which all dispossessed groups could have their say in. While most Democratic or Republican politicians were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and projected an ideological image of America in that mold, the Workers' Party's politicians were far more diverse. At the 1932 National Convention, one fourth of the delegates were women. Germans, many of whom still spoke German and lived in bilingual communities, were the largest contingent, with close to 30 percent of the delegates identifying as German (this includes German Jews). Irish were the second largest group, accounting for twenty percent of the delegates. One sixth were Anglo-Saxon, another ten percent identified as Poles. Jews, which overlapped with other categories, accounted for almost ten percent of the delegates. Italians were less well represented, but were also the fastest growing contingent in the Party. Africans are strongly represented in Northern and Western locals, but underrepresented in the South due to harsh restrictions on the mobility and political activity of minorities. The small Asian communities were also increasingly tying themselves to the Workers' Party, as were Native Americans.

The demographics of the National Convention closely match a community's level of involvement in the Party. While it has always caused friction, the Workers' Party (and the preceding Socialist Labor Party), always emphasized a multicultural vision for America. Langston Hughes summarized this goal with the seminal "Brave New World" speech, broadcast by radio in the Summer of 1934. America, he argued, was by virtue of its immigrant population, its indigenous peoples, and it's role in spearheading both the liberal and socialist revolutions was a "nation of nations." The new polity, ruled now by a vastly different demographic coalition, would be the proving ground for the inevitable future of world communism.

In this new America, all nations and creeds would be embraced. Racial or ethnic bigotry was actively counterrevolutionary, and would be stamped out. While English would remain the lingua franca, multilingualism would be encouraged. The preservation or revival of ethnic traditions would be cherished.

1. German for "comrade." Has roughly the same connotation in English as "comrade" does IOTL. While ITTL "comrade" is a pretty universal form of address (largely superseding "Mister" and "Misses"), "genosse" has political implications in American English that immediately identify political affiliation, most commonly within the Communist Unity Party, the Progressive Labor Party, and the Social Ecology Union and affiliated groups. I.e., groups sharing an ideological heritage back in the WCP. Calling a fellow party-member "genosse" is far less common in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor milleau, and almost unheard of in the Democratic-Republicans.

2. "Liberal" has evolved to have the same connotation as "libertarian" has IOTL.

Excerpts from Nadezhda Meyer, The Revolution, (New York: Pathfinder, 1958)

When the outgoing US Congress reconvened on 5 December (as was required under the 1787 Constitution), the first signs of trouble were already apparent. The first order of business after First Secretary Longworth called the House of Representatives to order was surprising; he reported that three members of the Cabinet had resigned, and his caretaker government would need to fill those vacancies immediately, entering an already prepared motion to confirm the new Secretaries.

The swiftness was highly unusual. As were Longworth's appointments. The appointment of Lieutenant General Douglas MacArthur, the much hated head of Army Intelligence, as Secretary of War drew particular ire from the opposition.

When pressed for some reasoning for the sudden shakeup, Longworth stonewalled, reporting that the matters were purely personal and private, and therefore neither politically relevant nor subject to the House's review. Hoping to extend debate as long as possible within limits of the House's rules, Opposition Leader Benjamin Gitlow demanded the release of documentation regarding the resignations, as well as the decisions on who to nominate as replacement. Before the motion could be put to a vote (it had gained the assent of a number of equally perturbed Republican backbenchers), Longworth dismissed it, citing executive privilege.

A motion to censure the government for abusing executive privilege predictably failed on a strict party-line vote. At this juncture, the Workers' Party caucus were at a loss for what to do. On the eve of taking power, some highly suspicious activity had been noticed outside of the day's equally suspicious Congressional activity. Most notably, closed door meetings between President Hoover and a number of Army and Marine Corps officers, including MacArthur. Gitlow's secretaries feverishly prepared a detailed report, telegraphing it to the party headquarters in Chicago asking for further instructions.

This was not the only alarming news that the Politburo would receive this week. The party controlled a large web of informants in a large intelligence network, serving both to help keep the party and its constituent organs one step ahead of local reactionaries as well as to funnel intelligence to the Soviet NKVD, who had provided a considerable amount of money and expertise to the project. The system was far from perfect, leaking constantly, and many of its informants were also on the establishment's payroll. State police, as well as the Secret Service, the NBI, and Military Intelligence, played a cloak and dagger game with with this active fifth column. The party's one advantage against its mostly better equipped, better trained adversaries was that practically every member of the working class was a potential informant, and one that didn't expect to be paid to boot.

The myriad reports painted a murky picture. All that was clear was that most of the establishment was panicking. Maids in uptown Boston heard talk between wealthy financiers about moving assets out of the US. A custodian at Harvard University reported fears of rioting or mob justice against their class. A secretary working for US Steel smuggled out a memo concerning increasing donations to far-right militant groups, including the American Legion and the German-American Bund.

The Center and Right controlled Politburo mulled over the continued reports into the early hours of the morning. Finally, they reached a decision, overruling Secretary-General Browder. The telegrams sent out to the party caucus, as well as all the state and local sections, directed them to avoid "the naive impulse towards immediate class confrontation," and invoke party discipline to muzzle the party's Left and Ultra Left. The party caucus would drop opposition to MacArthur's appointment, and would make general assurances that the transfer of power would be peaceful, and the rule of law would be respected.

The party's militants were not satisfied by this in the slightest. By 13 December, the Left, in cooperation with the Spartacists and the Solidarity trade union, sent out a call to mobilize the masses. Soviets would be established; state and national congresses of soviets would be formed with all due haste. Wildcat strikes and other work stoppages increased in frequency in many industrial and mining centers.

The smoke and mirrors couldn't have split the party more thoroughly had it been planned. Both groupings, often loosely referred to as the "Legalists" and the "Maximalists", drew vastly different conclusions from the same observations. The Legalists, who controlled much of the upper echelons of the party, as well as the Congressional caucus, saw a frightened group of bourgeois dinosaurs about to be swept away by the wheel of history. They needed to be soothed and placated before they did something stupid.

The Maximalists were convinced that the bourgeoisie was already committed to selling its soul to fascist reaction, and that a reactionary putsch was imminent. History has, of course, vindicated the Maximalists. The discovery process in Longworth's post revolution trial for treason uncovered a treasure trove of documents implicating him and others in vast conspiracy, one that had began the moment the election returns were in.

Hoover's closed door meetings with MacArthur were in fact outright attempts at intimidating the scrupulous Hoover into siding with the extra-constitutional coup. While Longworth had set the ball rolling, and convinced his Cabinet, over the protest of three members, to bring MacArthur in as the point-man for the coup, it was MacArthur who quickly rose to a commanding position in this conspiracy. Through a mixture of bribery and threats against their family, the three cabinet members were convinced to resign quietly and be placed under house arrest by the Army.

From there, the criminal conspiracy expanded, bringing in the heads of many state police, as well as many supporters from the business world. Far-right organizations were quickly recruited into the cause, and given considerable resources to both increase their membership as well as arm themselves.

The putschists very quickly turned their eye towards suppressing revolution. The major cities, they quickly concluded, would be lost causes in the event of any uprisings. Controlling the countryside would be key. The conspiracy expanded to include many Southern Democratic leaders, ensuring a solid South from which to draw resources and manpower. The urban rural divide in Midwestern states was easy to exploit, and the conspirators were confident that enough force existed in private security and the National Guard to secure the West.

The use of paramilitary force and the National Guard to secure the rest of the country would allow them to concentrate the best troops, the ten divisions of the US Army and the two Marine divisions, against the communist strongholds.

This was all mostly in place before the New Year. It would only be a matter of playing for time to ensure that all the pieces were deployed for the coup. Thus when the Congress met in Joint-Session on 6 January 1933 to count the votes of Electoral College, the lame-duck Republican majority pulled out all the stops in challenging the outcome of the election, using procedural issues and any trumped up charge they could think of to decertify votes. This was clearly well outside of the intent of the constitutional framework, and the opposition thundered protests, accusing the Republicans of creating a constitutional crisis. This row in the Congress was ultimately used to indict the entire Republican and Democratic membership of the body for treason, though many were able to demonstrate that though they followed the conspirators marching orders, they themselves did not know that a conspiracy existed.

The Workers' Party mooted a general strike in protest, but ultimately rejected any hardline extraparliamentary action. A one day general strike was executed on 13 January as a statement of protest, but the party and union locals were directed in the strongest terms to prevent continuations. In the dead of winter, it wasn't hard to get even the Ultra-Left to comply. Whatever their faction, most agreed that it was a mistake to spend their resources at this time, whether to further frighten the bourgeoisie or because it wasn't the opportune moment to begin a revolutionary takeover.

The unfortunate cost of this policy was that it gave MacArthur a free hand to arrange his chess pieces. The American Railway Union and the Telegraph & Telephone Union were among the most radical and well organized in the Solidarity federation. A strike could have easily crippled MacArthur's preparations.

Wednesday, 1 February 1933 was selected to be the D-day for the coup. Late the previous night, President Hoover signed, under duress, an executive order that declared the United States to be under threat of unlawful insurrection, and under Article IV, Section 4 of the 1787 Constitution, a state of emergency and martial law were to be declared effective 1 February. Habeas corpus would be indefinitely suspended. Furthermore, Lieutenant General MacArthur would exercise the president's commander-in-chief authority for the duration of this crisis.

MacArthur's first action was to issue indictments to the entirety of the Workers' Party leadership for “encouraging insurrection and the willful destruction of property” under the terms of the Sedition Act, and thus ineligible to hold federal office. In the same stroke, he issued an executive order, supposedly counter-signed by Hoover, banning the Workers' Party as a treasonous organization.

His handpicked loyalists, many fresh out of West Point, marched into Washington D.C. in the early hours of the morning. Supported by American Legion paramilitaries, they quickly arrested many of the Workers' Party's top leadership. Some, like President-elect Norman Thomas, were summarily executed.

Lieutenant John C. Williams, a protege of MacArthur's in Military Intelligence, led a squad of Army regulars backed by a detachment of the American Legion to the hotel where Norman Thomas was staying. In the attempt to make the arrest, a bell hop was bayonetted, and the hotel manager shot. Both were left to die in the hotel lobby. They quickly reached Thomas' room on the third floor. He was already dressed, sitting calmly on the edge of the hotel bead as the soldiers stormed into his room.

Before Lt. Williams could read the arrest warrant, Thomas interrupted: "I suppose you have come to kill me." He remained composed as the Lt. read the charges, ordering Thomas to rise to be led to an undisclosed location. Thomas was undeterred. As multiple witnesses confirmed, both from the arresting party as well as frightened bystanders, Thomas continued to castigate his executioners. Calmly but firmly, he asked Lt. Williams to, "Think very hard about what you are doing, son. Once you go down this road, there is no going back." Engaging in lawlessness and destroying the constitution, "sets a precedent that will cast a pall over this country for a century. You think what you are doing is going to save the country, to save liberty, but you are the ones murdering them."

At this point, Lt. Williams pistol whipped Thomas, telling Thomas to "Shut up, you Red bastard!"

As Thomas was led outside, Lt. Williams accused Thomas of being a traitor, and a "No-good grovelling coward, pleading to have your life spared." He shoved Thomas up against the hotel's brick exterior wall as his troops formed a firing line ten paces away.

"No," he replied, "I have already made my peace with God. I am already prepared to die for the revolutionary struggle. I am begging you to save your own soul, and turn away from this madness. But if you're determined to plunge this nation into darkness, hurry up and shoot me, and quit wasting my time." And so they did, creating the first martyr of the Revolution.

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Have a manly tear, on the house

Excerpts from Nadezhda Meyer, The Revolution, (New York: Pathfinder, 1958)

The Revolution began with very modest goals. While MacArthur's putsch had not lived up to expectations, the fact still remained that in February the Reds were in a very precarious situation. The West Coast, the South, New England and much of the Midwest were under the firm control of the Whites. Taken by surprise as they were, there was very little opportunity to organize resistance against martial law. What resistance there was was forced quickly underground or it was crushed.

The most spectacular example of White brutality was during the occupation of Louisiana. Huey Long had been the only Democratic governor to defy MacArthur openly, and when the state of emergency was declared he called up the National Guard, re-established the state militia, and ordered a general resistance to the military regime. MacArthur had, however, been prepared for this eventuality. A Marine regiment, supported by two regiments of the Mississippi National Guard and a paramilitary regiment, marched on Baton Rouge. The city's defenders were caught unprepared. By the time the National Guard was dispatched to repel the invaders, it was already too late. The governor, along with much of the state legislature, had been liquidated.

Across the Industrial Belt, though, the Reds were able to very quickly take control. The urban soviets very quickly directed the Spartacus League to take control of the machinery of government. The lame duck state governments were arrested, and the Workers' Party assumed control of the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

On 4 February, the first national Convocation of Soviets convened in Chicago. Two prepared measures were instituted very quickly. The first, which later became known as the Fundamental Principles of the Soviet Congresses, established the basic rules of soviet government in America. The state governments would be subordinated to state level soviets. Universal suffrage, without citizenship or residency restriction, was instituted, as well as an assurance of a secret ballot, the recall of deputies and other minutia. Most importantly, it invoked the right of revolution to permanently alter the US constitutional arrangement, based on the fundamental principle that power derives from the mandate of the masses.

The second measure authorized the creation of a Provisional Government. Often called the Labor Declaration of Independence, it reiterated the central premise of the first measure, as well as empowered the Provisional Government to put down the unlawful coup d'etat in Washington, and to restore the United States Constitution.

The Provisional Government was organized hastily the very next day. From its inception, it faced numerous difficulties. For one, much of the party's senior leadership had been killed or incarcerated in the opening stages of the coup. Vice President-elect Upton Sinclair had escaped only because he was attending to party business in Chicago, and not in Washington to prepare for the inauguration. At this stage, most of the new Congressional delegation, particularly the frontbench, were unaccounted for.

The Center and Right factions of the party had suffered the most from the sudden turn of events. The Left and Ultra-Left surged into the leadership vacuum. A triumvirate quickly emerged between the now Acting President Sinclair, the Provisional First Secretary William Z. Foster, and Workers' Party Secretary-General Earl Browder. Out of the chaos of this first few days, they were able to quickly attune to the situation, and worked tirelessly to organize all resources available to resist the Whites.

Like Lincoln before him, Sinclair was keen to use the powers of the executive office as a blunt instrument against domestic insurrection. His first executive order ordered the seizure of all property of those persons or institutions affiliated with the military junta. The veneer of legality that the Provisional Government imposed smoothed the Solidarity led occupation and collectivization process. The Provisional Government had been endorsed by nearly every organization that opposed the coup, and now they could not object to the "military necessity" of seizing the property of rebels to support the war effort.

The Spartacus League as well as the various National guards and militia groups opposing MacArthur had all quickly pledged themselves to the Provisional Government, and the Provisional Secretary of War Martin Abern wasted no time in coordinating a national chain of command.

Yet for all their energy and efforts, the situation facing the Provisional Government was quite bleak. Their only saving grace was that partisan warfare hindered efforts to mobilize troops against the Red strongholds. Black communist rebels, many WW1 veterans, in particular were a constant thorn in the US Army's side. Organized, disciplined and ruthless, they struck at the supply lines of troops heading north, and waged a campaign of terror against the Southern gentry.

Still, in terms of numbers and arms, the advantage was still decisively in the Whites favor. Attempts to halt the US Army's advance northward failed. On 1 March, the 3rd Infantry Division crushed the Illinois National Guard in the Civil War's first major battle. On the same day, a single cavalry regiment mutinied. It was a single candle holding back the darkness, but it would be just enough of a spark to light the fires of revolution.

Lt. Colonel George S. Patton had been entrusted by MacArthur to bribe the rabble of dispossessed veterans calling itself the Bonus Army into joining the reactionary cause. He seemed to be the best man for the job: dedicated, efficient in his duties, charming to his friends, ruthless to his enemies. He'd demonstrated as much in both the First World War and his time in military intelligence, where he'd risen to control the intelligence network that infiltrated, spied upon, and disrupted domestic subversive political activity. No one in the US Army understood the Reds better than him.

In what was perhaps the greatest intelligence failure in American history, a mole had worked his way all the way to the commanding heights of the US intelligence community. That mole was Patton. Trained in the craft by the NKVD, he'd been working the other angle diligently. His record of success in Army Intelligence was sustained by purposely pitting Army resources against other intelligence groups. He'd been feeding NBI informants to the state police, and state police informants to the NBI for almost ten years.

The men at the top, including MacArthur himself, had always suspected there was a mole in the organization, but in spite of their best efforts identifying him had always eluded them.

In being reassigned to the field, he'd ensured that many personal friends and those he knew to be communist fellow travelers assigned with him. It wasn't hard; the Depression had hit the Army as well, and it had been the cavalry that bore the brunt of it. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment had been constantly underbilleted, and it was not hard to bring many outsiders into the regiment in these trying times.

They'd rode forth to co-opt or disperse the Bonus Army. On the morning of that fateful day, Patton dispatched known White hardliners away from the main body as scouts. Thus when he addressed the Bonus Army, announcing his intentions to mutiny against the unlawful coup and bidding them to join him, he was not interrupted. It did not take much convincing, either. Most of the rank and file in the unit had viewed their orders with disgust. The Bonus Army was already in a militant mood. They agreed to take up arms against the Whites. The White hardliners were all arrested upon their return. Then raising a red flag, they marched North to capture the Federal Arsenal in Bedford.
 
Excerpts from Robert J. Freeman, “The Origins of American State Atheism,” in American Political Science Review v 70 no. 1, Winter 1976.

Within the political culture of the Union of American Socialist Republics, the role of that religious groups and personal religious faith can play has been sharply curtailed. While it has never been without its critics, relegating religion to a completely private role and forcing it out of the public life of the citizenry has remained a remarkably popular policy regardless of their religious adherence.

As this review of the historical record will demonstrate, this policy of state atheism has its roots in the pre-revolution United States and its insurgent labor movement. The dominant view point that developed in the American proletariat was that religion, especially the existing religious institutions, was a reactionary force. At best, it was simply unconcerned with the problems of justice in the here and now, offering, as the old Solidarity lingo put it, “pie-in-the-sky for hungry bellies on earth.” More commonly, extant churches attached to the reactionary right with few exceptions.

The militant anti-clerical mood began on the shop floor, and the often heavy-handed attempts by churches to influence believers into abandoning the workers’ movement did more to trash the social esteem of religion than it did to push workers out of class-consciousness. The avowedly Marxist sections of the old Socialist Labor Party further encouraged the development of robust laicism in the labor movement, and as the worker’s movement assimilated the Marxian schema, the struggle against religion became a part of the political struggle.

This is not to say that even with the degeneration of the old ideology during the First World War, and the resulting mass radicalization of the proletariat, that the American workers’ renounced religious belief en masse and became explicit atheists. Many did, but most simply maintained more private and personal religious practices. While he may have been exaggerating, the fascist aligned orator and priest Father Coughlin decried that the urban and rural working masses had “Stopped going to church on Sunday, and went to Party conferences instead,” there is significant truth to that. Class struggle formed an integral part of working class culture, and its institutions fulfilled a social role as well as a political role, replacing many of the civic functions that religion had previously held.

During the MacArthur Putsch, the American Catholic Church hierarchy, as well as many of the large Protestant branches quickly aligned themselves with the reactionary government. While this was a deeply divisive move (For example, Father Coughlin’s overly enthusiastic support, and the atrocities committed by the Silver Shirts he was connected to, earned him excommunication by Rome in the aftermath), the damage was quick and permanent. The disintegration of many of the larger religious organizations mirrored the disintegration of the federal and state governments of the former United States. In parallel to MacArthur, the reactionary diehards captured the commanding heights of the organization, but the platform under them fell into chaos.

The bottom-up revolutionary wave couldn’t be easily stopped. In the industrial heartlands of the North and on the Pacific Coast, the religious leaders who conspired with the Putsch met similar fates. The old state authority evaporated in the face of organized revolutionary uprising. The Anti-Fascist Militias and Red Guards, directed by urban soviets led by the Workers’ Party ultra-left, filled the vacuum. While the Provisional Government under Sinclair still made its genuflections to constitutional restoration, the newly formed All-American Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias and Red Guards under Foster promulgated its General Order 1, marking the beginning of the Red Terror.

The Provisional Government may have had the sense of legal legitimacy, and the theoretical loyalty of the rebelling National Guards and Army mutineers, the AACCAMRG developed the first organizational chain of command for Red forces in the civil war, and while it in theory only covered the Spartacus League and the newly raised Red Guards, in practice it was the nucleus of military command for all anti-Putsch forces in the early stages of the civil war. Under General Order 1, a calculated program of terror was implemented against reactionary forces in Red occupied territories. “Reactionary religious institutions” were high on the list of targets. While most targets of the Red Terror faced arrest and detention without trial until the end of the Revolution, many of the more infamous ones were given quick show trials by revolutionary tribunal and executed. Many thousands more class enemies faced “justice by revolver,” in summary liquidations in retaliation against similar measures by the Whites.

The Catholic Church was hit most heavily by the Red Terror, but few major churches escaped unscathed. Their thinning congregations abandoned them, and many leaders would be tried and sentenced for their treasonous support of MacArthur or ongoing counterrevolutionary activity. There was a high level of urgency to early phases of the Red Terror; this was a “clearing of the field” in preparation for MacArthur’s drive northward with the bulk of the US Army.

The revolutionary paranoia dissipated after the Army’s poor showing in the Battles of Chicago and Pittsburgh, which saw large scale defections, and routs which handed over large amounts of war materiel, including tanks and heavy artillery, to the Reds. Nonetheless, when the Provisional Government and AACCAMRG agreed to consolidate, forming the Union of American Socialist Republics and taking an overtly revolutionary stance, the policy of suppression of class enemies continued. The Provisional Government, now the caretaker for the revolutionary soviet regime, and captured by the left, promulgated a series of laws that criminalized counterrevolutionary organizations. The skeleton of these emergency acts still informs much of the law today, including religious bodies being subject to the same general applicable tax structure as non-commercial NGOs, and the education system’s critical examination of religious history.

Excerpts from Robert Paxton, MacArthur’s National Socialism, New York and Oxford, Dialogue Press, 1974.

General of the Armies of the United States, President-for-Life and Defender of the Constitution Douglass MacArthur; the list of titles and accolades that the autocratic leader of the traitor regime occupying Cuba are befitting of a megalomaniacal personality. But we must not allow ourselves to be led astray by simplistic political psychoanalytics. Man and political movement are intertwined, and even MacArthur found himself being pulled along by political moments as well as marshalling them.

In this book, I will chronicle the political evolution of the America far right in the old United States, from a factitious collection of highly diverse movements into a (mostly) united reactionary movement, the Restore the Republic Alliance, which in turn was marshalled by its new patron MacArthur, into a close political alliance with Hoover’s “National Center” coalition.

In its final expression, the MacArthur led RTRA were pushed into Cabinet, and centrist elements in the Republican Party such as the Taft Coalition found themselves jailed in the opening moves of the Putsch. To combat the mass appeal of the Communist led Popular Front, MacArthur forged the pro-Putsch alliance of Republicans and far-right reactionaries into the National Salvation Front with himself as Chairman. On 4 March, when the social revolution in the industrial heartland leaving the constitutional restorationist limits sought by the anti-Putsch Provisional Government, MacArthur’s national radio address announced the establishment of a “national constitutional socialist regime,” with Father Coughlin as its pliant head of state following Hoover’s departure.

MacArthur’s national socialism was a highly artificial construction, completely without history. While it sought to divert international communism’s mass appeal, it was often completely inauthentic, and many of the National Salvation Front’s member organizations resented the branding, even if they agreed with its Third Position platform. It placed itself as a “radical center” against the extremes of capitalism and communism, seeking to rebrand socialism as a corporatist balance between capital and labor.

In its symbolism, it was as American as apple pie. The National Salvation Front turned the “Founding Fathers” of the old First and Second Republics, as its spiritual forebears, though even the most radical ultra-leftists, who had no love for dinosaurs of the bourgeois revolution, agreed that this was akin to defiling the dead. Bald Eagles, Uncle Sam, the Gadsen snake, the Red, White and Blue, and the Confederate Battle Flag coexisted in a weird mélange.

MacArthur’s national socialism and the National Salvation Front that espoused it was devoutly anti-liberal in practice, but parroted liberal phraseology and arguments in severe cognitive dissonance. It was openly white nationalist, and did not attempt to disguise its anti-Semitism and racism. Communism was derided as a foreign, Jewish, and black import to America, and an existential threat to the white race. It expressed reverence for the constitution, while it suspended all of its protections. It styled itself as restoring America’s long perverted original constitutional order, including states’ rights mythology, but in practice the regime was a totalitarian unitary state, with the existing federal system obliterated, with state governments being dissolved into the National Salvation Front itself.

The comparison to Hitlerite national socialism is easy, but ultimately unwarranted. While both were oxymoronic politics of inherent contradiction, both developed independently. More importantly, Hitler spent ten years building his Nazi brand before taking power, MacArthur tried to develop it as a means of securing mass appeal after having seized power in a military junta. In America, regardless of MacArthur’s efforts, socialism meant the lower stage of Marxian communist development, and the revolutionary, internationalist movement dedicated to implementing it. Borrowing its mass appeal was impossible, and the outright fascist character of the National Salvation Front made shifting from mere constitutional restoration to revolutionary overthrow all the easier for the Reds.
 
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Excerpts from Lev Goldstein, Our Bullets Are For Our Own Generals, (New York: Academy, 1966)

On 4 March, the Civil War took its first great plunge into open conflict. On that day, the two rival governments promulgated unprecedented decrees with the aim of marshaling available military resources to their cause. General MacArthur decreed, through his puppets controlling the legal offices of the US government, that the state National Guards would be brought under exclusive federal control under the auspices of the War Department.

In parallel, the Provisional Government, under the direction of First Secretary Foster, established the All-American Central Committee for Anti-Fascist Militias and Red Guards (Antifa). Antifa was initially meant only to provide a command hierarchy to coordinate paramilitary forces aligned with the Provisional Government, but it quickly grew into the central command of the entire Red war effort.

At the outset of major fighting, the situation looked grim for the Provisional Government. The Whites controlled, at least on paper, much of the country. It had a considerable advantage in the number of men-at-arms it fielded, particularly in terms of regular forces, an advantage that was compounded by great superiority in the number and quality of artillery, air and mobile forces. But most crucially, they began hostilities well poised to strike from a position of strength.

Antifa’s best forces were a handful of loyalist National Guard divisions. While they mobilized under the putschist’s preparatory call-up, their officers and men correctly deduced the true nature of their orders and refused to carry out the orders of an unlawful command authority. Instead, they declared themselves the Red Guards of the Provisional Government.

Antifa’s irregular forces, however, had a significant quality advantage over the legions of fascist irregulars that MacArthur had drummed up to support his conventional forces. The Workers’ Party aligned Spartacus League’s combat pedigree extended back fourteen years to the Biennio Rosso, when demobilized veterans took up arms against police and National Guard despotism. These veterans had continued to fight a low level street war in American cities throughout the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression against Pinkerton strikebreakers and far-right goon squads. While they lacked heavy weapons, making do with whatever could be seized from military armories at the beginning of the conflict, they made up for this deficiency with experience, discipline and a fanatical resolve in the revolutionary cause.

Though smaller in number and less well organized, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Minutemen made invaluable contributions to Antifa’s war effort. They drew upon the same pool of WWI veterans that the Spartacus League (and to a lesser extent, their right-wing enemies did as well), and in both cases the experience of frontline conflict proved to be a great levelling factor in direct battle with the traitor units of the US Army and Marines.

The anarchist Syndicalist Federation organized its own combat militia, the Black Brigades (not to be confused with the predominantly African communist militias in the South). With fewer resources and central organization, the Black Brigades tended to integrate into the local revolutionary command, grudgingly accepting the communist hegemony over the antifascist struggle.

This listing, however, should not be taken as exhaustive. Numerous smaller groups, many ad hoc, also operated under Antifa’s aegis during the Civil War, to say nothing of all the individual acts of rebellion and sabotage that occurred in sympathy with the antifascist struggle.

Antifa’s first major test came just days after its founding. Fresh from trouncing the ill-prepared Illinois National Guard, the 3rd Infantry Division under the command of Brigadier George C. Marshall(1) prepared to strike at the heart of the revolution. Marching with all deliberate haste towards the trade union and Provisional Government capital of Chicago, he aimed to strangle the revolution in its infancy. After the route at Belleville, Marshall expected to end the revolution with minimal fuss in a single quick stroke.

Instead, he encountered continual partisan resistance harrying his supply lines, an early spring thaw that made it impossible to use his unit’s motorization to full effect, and poor morale. Desertions plagued the 3rd Infantry, and the paramilitary auxiliaries proved to be unreliable at best. More often, they left a wake of excessive brutality and looting that hampered the hearts and minds mission that MacArthur had directed, and which Marshall personally agreed with.

This is not to say that either were liberal or humane in their conduct of the war. They simply had the mistaken assumption that their opposition had been duped by foreign agitators, and that they could be easily swayed to the cause of the National Salvation Front once communist perfidy had been revealed. To that end, they engaged in a campaign of politicide against “agents of foreign agitation.” While in theory it only applied to communists, in practice the net was cast so wide that that the politicide campaign was directed at all left-wing opposition MacArthur’s coup.

Antifa did not allow this to go unanswered. With the ad hoc Army of the Mississippi(2) bearing down on Chicago, it promulgated the now infamous General Order 1, authorizing the use of terror on class enemies and fascist collaborators. Antifa’s inflammatory and revolutionary rhetoric signaled that the organization had already far exceeded the constitutional restorationist agenda set for it by the Provisional Government, provoking a measure of rebuke from the DFLP and the few Loyalist Republicans participating in the PG.

While Workers’ Party National Secretary Earl Browder publically chastised Antifa’s chairman, Martin Abern, for “needlessly endangering the antifascist Popular Front,” in his private letters with William Z. Foster and John Reed, he expressed cautious optimism. While he felt it too premature to move towards open revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, he was under no illusions about the possibility of any genuine constitutional restoration. Rather, this would be the opening battle of maneuver to force the reformists to accept the necessity of revolution.

Elsewhere, other elements of the US Army marched north to lay siege to workers’ strongholds. MacArthur ordered Colonel Adna Chaffee, commanding officer of the 1st Cavalry Division based in Iowa to form the Army of the Prairie with whatever forces he could muster, and hook through Minneapolis before driving on to Milwaukee.

The Army of the Ohio, under Major General Robert E. Wood, would drive north to the great industrial cities of Ohio, to cut across Red lines of communication and bisect the Reds at their narrowest point. On his eastern flank, the Army of Appalachia under Lieutenant General Frank Parker was tasked with bringing the renegade 3rd Cavalry Regiment down and taking Pittsburgh.

MacArthur himself, recently given the rank of General of the Armies of the United States by the now National Salvation Front dominated Congress, established the Army of the Potomac with the intention of driving towards the revolution’s other heart in Metropolis.(3) However, MacArthur’s own efforts were delayed awaiting further mobilizing of troops and supplies, but he was content to wait. Taking the island citylets of Metropolis would be a nightmare, and he used the delay to try to strongarm the Navy into complying with his regime’s prerogatives.

The crucial delay before any of the Navy’s admirals would put to sea to support MacArthur’s ambitions proved to be a considerable boon to the Reds. While White forces were bearing down further west, the ports on the east coast were still open and under Red control. Ships carrying arms and volunteers from the Soviet Union began arriving in earnest. Additional volunteers came from across Europe to answer the Comintern’s call to defend the forces of workers’ democratic power in America.

…April began bloodily. The Spartacus League’s Abraham Lincoln Column was mangled badly in the Battle of Springfield, but the victory prove phyrric for Marshall. In striking at what he perceived as the weakest point in the Reds’ lines, he exposed the Army of the Mississippi to considerable peril. The Spartacus League proved to be made of sterner stuff than he anticipated, and the Red Guards harried at his flanks. Though he took the field, and forced antifascist forces to retreat for a final defense at Chicago, the black eye he sustained shook the morale of his ranks to the core.

In Ohio, Wood’s forces pushed forward with reckless abandon. Emboldened by the poor showing of the Cincinnati Red Guards, he decided to defy his operational orders for a more cautious advance through the Ohio lowlands. Instead, he chose to divide his forces. A column of National Guardsmen and irregulars, bolstered by mustered veteran volunteer detachments, would lay siege to Columbus. The main body of regulars push forward by road or rail to Toledo. His master stroke would be to sever all lines of communication between the Midwestern revolutionaries and the East Coast.

It was bold and unexpected. Red forces from Cleveland and Akron had been split between relieving the besieged city of Pittsburgh, and preparing for a counterattack to the South. It proved impossible to interdict Wood’s mad dash to the Great Lakes before he was at the gates of Toledo.

…The long assault on Toledo would prove to be one of the darkest chapters of the Civil War. Wood’s White regulars did not hesitate to shell Red defensive positions in the city. Nor did Army Air Force attack aircraft shy away from dropping their payloads in the densely populated city. The attacks, to poorly coordinated to be of any real military use, amounted to a campaign of terror bombing against the city’s civilian population. The beleaguered defenders, outnumbered and outgunned, held onto each meter of ground with stubborn tenacity. But they held on. The trade unions adapted what industry they could to the production of war materiel, a task that did not prove as difficult as originally feared. Much of the city’s factories had spent the First World War building munitions, and adapting the tools back to this task took only the ingenuity and experience that the industry’s veterans had an abundant supply of.

Excerpts from the AH.com thread “Your opinion of Maurice Spector”

RougeBeaver said:
Exactly what it says on the tin.
SeriousSam said:
Ubermunch said:
OP, your copycat thread gave me cancer.
LeninsBeard said:
Maurice Spector is a very controversial Canadian politico who had some rapport here in America. Basically, during the Civil War, he organized a volunteer column among the Canadian left that fought under the International Brigade aegis. Got him a lot of acclaim here, and helped the WCPA establishment forget he had been Moscow orthodox before 1933.
AdmiralSanders said:
A traitor and a scoundrel. :p

In all seriousness, he seems like a bit of a prima donna and a glory hound. I’ve only read one bio on him, and from what I remember is that the revolutionary upsurge of the 30s gave him a lot of acclaim among radicalized youth, and he occasionally abused that (allegedly). And before you ask, this was written by a communist fellow traveler, so you can’t really call it a bourgeois smear job.
QuitStalin said:
Here in the great white north, opinion on him kind of soured after the forties. The left in general, including the moderate left, blamed him for encouraging a trend of going into self-imposed exile in the UASR starting at the outset of WW2, which deprived the left of many of its best and most committed activists.

Full disclosure: my parents were party members, met at a May Day rally in ’39, and I never heard either of them say a kind word about him. Sure, he had been harassed by the Canadian government, but so did the people who stayed. I think the broader Canadian public at the time just thought “good riddance.”
DeOppressoLiber said:
I did my thesis at West Point about the irregular forces in the Battle of Toledo. I had found that there was a pattern of overstating the importance of the International Brigades volunteers in the battle; not a dramatic one but definitely noticeable, probably to play up the international nature of the revolutionary struggle. I can’t say much of him playing at military leader, except that he had the good sense to defer to people who were more knowledgeable in the George Brown Brigade.

The Canadian volunteers plugged the holes at the critical moments of the battle, but it is doubtful that the Whites would have made much more progress without them. They weren’t prepared for hard urban fighting, and plenty of American partisans were streaming in from Detroit and Buffalo.

Some excerpts from British press coverage of the American Civil War

“Amidst allegations of vote intimidation and rampant ballot-stuffing by Bolshevik militants, wide scale rioting has spread in major cities across the United States of America. Reports have indicated large scale property destruction, as well as instances of ‘lynch law’, a foul American practice once predominantly exercised in the mob murder of American Negroes, being applied to men of the affluent classes. This has become severe enough that the American president, Herbert Hoover, has been forced to call up the militia to suppress this insurrection.”

Front page story, The Daily Telegraph, 3 February 1933

“There are those among our intelligentsia which have cautioned that the Empire must tread lightly towards the new regime in America. One can only guess as to their motives; while a great deal have undoubtedly been seduced by Communistic treachery, there are some who may yet be won over. Their genteel abhorrence to the violent restoration of order by MacArthur’s triumphant party is understandable, though we must obviously support such regrettable necessary measures to prevent the collapse of American civilization into the proletarian abyss. I am confident in predicting that MacArthur’s sensitive Conservative leadership will bring about a revitalization of the nation which would silence all protests about the means of this rebirth. The minor misdeeds of individual members of the National Salvation Front would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing upon America.”(4)

Lord Rothermere’s editorial, The Daily Mail, 21 March 1933

“The Conservative Party, under the leadership of Stanley Baldwin, have announced their decision to withdraw from the National Government, citing irreconcilable political differences with their partners in the National Labour and National Liberal parties. Conservative members of His Majesty’s Government have resigned, and it is expected that Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald will petition His Majesty to dissolve parliament and call new elections. While Baldwin’s address made no explicit connection between his party’s resignation and the Prime Minister’s refusal to extend credit or permit arms sales to the White Government amidst increasing reports of large scale atrocities following the suspension of their constitution in early February, the record of parliamentary debate on the issue leaves no other conclusion.”

The Times, 24 March 1933

“One hears endlessly of the collapse of ‘English civilization in America’ and the rise of ‘Oriental barbarism’ with each new victory by Popular forces. Among the ‘respectable’ voices, each cable from across the Atlantic brings only more doom and gloom. But for the British labourer, the news can only be met with cheer. In the guild halls and workshops, there is no self-deception. We do not laud murderers and despots keeping men in bondage at the point of the bayonet. But perhaps most importantly, the decisive revolutionary spirit of the American worker has dethroned the conservative orthodoxy within the Labour Party, who have devoted their efforts to managing the excesses of capital for capitalists instead of advancing the cause of the workers. The half-measures of Labour’s timid governments have failed. Collaboration with class-enemies has proven disastrous to the real situation of the workers and their families. The building of an authentic socialist economy, based off the lessons of the American experience, must be the central aim of the entire Labour movement.”

James Maxton’s opinion-editorial, Daily Herald, 14 April 1933

“Amidst the very public failure of his bold aims to restore order ‘within two months’ of the beginning of hostilities, the White Generalissimo MacArthur has begun moving troops from American colonial possessions to the mainland with the hopes of bolstering his beleaguered war effort. This is made difficult by the increasing reports of partisan warfare within the White strongholds of the American South. As the Governor of Mississippi reported, the White cause was ‘bleeding from a thousand cuts,’ made by ‘Negro brigands.’”

The Manchester Guardian, 20 April 1933

April Showers Bring May Flowers

The Constitutional Restoration consensus which the members of the Provisional Government had pledged to, had already been a dead letter before March was over. Cracks had been appearing before hand; the collectivization of industry and agriculture had begun in a bottom-up, spontaneous fountain of revolutionary enthusiasm. When necessary, the Workers Party had excused these acts as matters of local military necessity. The logic did pass a certain muster, as the sovietization of industry ensured a quick clearing of logjams, as workers took to their tasks with considerably enhanced enthusiasm. It also served to remove internal White resistance in Red controlled areas, a process that came to be assisted by Antifa “public safety commissions” that dealt out justice by shillelagh and revolver.

The internal faction war within the Party reached its decisive moment on 30 March. Three of the most influential surviving theoreticians in the Party met in private, agreeing to form a triumvirate to push the party into seizing the moment. The Provisional First Secretary William Z. Foster, and the Party Communications Director John Reed were already stalwarts of the Party’s left-wing. The major coup was the third member of the triumvirate, Party Secretary-General Earl Browder, a staunch Muscovite centrist by reputation, who moved dramatically to the left as the Civil War ensued.

The Party began to discretely encourage greater measures of revolutionary confrontation under the guise of “military exigency.” They quickly found that both industry and partisan forces were eager to advance the revolutionary cause. By the time the triumvirate finished exerting its control over the Party, relegating the remnants of the Party right to “consultation” roles within the apparatus, the whole of Antifa’s chain of command, which were nominally under the direction of the pluralist Provisional Government, de facto answered to the Workers Party. Even the other political militants, such as the DFLP’s Minutemen, were able to be pulled away from the Restoration consensus.

Elsewhere, the cauldron of discontent began overcoming MacArthur’s attempts to crack down, boiling over into a second front in the American Revolution. Emboldened by the news of Patton’s Bonus Army mutiny, the sailors of the US Pacific Fleet stationed in San Francisco began their own mutiny.

Under the loose leadership of naval aviator John S. Thach (he is said to have remarked he didn’t so much lead the mutiny as he was the one running fast enough to stay at the head of the pack), the sailors holding the Bay Area under martial law revolted against their officers. In the early morning hours of 4 April, a cadre of Red sailors struck simultaneously on each of the battleships anchored in the San Francisco bay. Assisted by sympathetic junior officers, and with the majority support of the crews, the sailors raised the red flag of revolution over the battleships at dawn. With the battleships’ mighty guns no longer holding the city hostage, the revolt spread like a wildfire. Similar mutinies spread to the lesser support vessels in the fleet, and the naval security detachments in the city proper began to raise the red flag. The city’s powerful trade unions turned out in force, sweeping aside the weak White paramilitaries trying to hold the city.

By dusk the next day, the city of San Francisco was under complete Red control. The mayor and much of the city council had been arrested as enemies of the people, and soon the radio stations began broadcasting a revolutionary call to arms. The West coast was quickly ablaze with revolution, aided by similar mutinies by Naval personnel in San Diego and Seattle. The California country side became a fierce battleground between Red and White militia groups.

The opening of the second front on the West coast came too late to stop the repatriation of troops from the Philippines. It did, however, mark a decisive turning point in Soviet attitudes towards the American revolution. While the Soviet government and the Comintern center did not go so far as to issue any censure to the American communists, behind closed doors the reports of revolutionary agitation were viewed as needless adventurism. The official Comintern line, as handed down by Stalin, was to fight for constitutional restoration, and avoid risky gambles that could damage the whole international communist movement. But with the success of the West coast uprisings, Stalin finally committed to seeing the American revolution through to the end. In a historical irony, Stalin’s foreign policy began to mirror his rival Trotsky’s doctrine of permanent revolution.

Arms, resources and volunteers began to be channeled to America, especially the torrents of German communists fleeing the embryonic Nazi regime. The Comintern’s International Brigades brought new reserves of manpower to the Red cause in the Civil War, and Communists in the European trade unions succeeded in pushing the unions to thwarting attempts by the bourgeois governments of Europe to provide material support to the White regime.

As April drew to a close, General Marshall’s Army of the Mississippi laid siege to Chicago. His forces clashed with Antifa workers militias along the suburban outskirts of the city. And though he seemed mere inches away from closing his grip around the revolution’s throat, his troops encountered Chicago’s defenses the same way a car encounters a brick wall.

He did not attain the easy walkover that he had anticipated based on the experience of Springfield. Instead, his already shaken troops encounter intense resistance from an armed urban mass of men and women who dug in and did not yield ground cheaply. The Antifa defenders effectively used commandeered civilian vehicles to move reserve troops into breaches as fast as they appeared. And the uncontested air superiority he had enjoyed was now challenged by a motley group of mutinying airmen and Soviet volunteers.

On 24 April, Marshall’s offensive ground to a near standstill. His soldiers, ill-equipped and poorly trained for streetfighting, measured their gains in blocks, and then buildings. In the brutal melee, casualties mounted on both sides. On the following day, Marshall abandoned his previous restraint, and set his artillery to a round the clock shelling of Red positions in the city. But the heavy masonry of the city’s buildings proved more resilient to 105mm artillery shells than anticipated, and even bombed out structures still made effective bunkers.

26 April saw the first bouts of mass desertion in the Army of the Mississippi. This did less to sap the effectiveness of Marshall’s forces than it bolstered the strength of Antifa’s ranks. The troops who defected had been the ones ideologically opposed to the MacArthurite agenda, and had been subtly sabotaging the White cause by inaction and pantomime.

Even by conservative estimates, his forces were inflicting two casualties for every one they received, but still Marshall found himself no closer to taking the city after nearly a week of hard fighting. With MacArthur breathing down his neck, demanding from on high that the center of Red subversion be taken “immediately,” Marshall had no route available but forward. A protracted siege of the city would be nearly impossible; the Solidarity federation taken control of nearly all American shipping on the Great Lakes. Their allies on the Canadian side had taken decisive strike action, grinding transport to a halt at the mere whiff of any material support being extended to the White regime. Chicago could thus be continually resupplied, with men and materiel, from unassailled Red strongholds in Wisconsin and Michigan.

In spite of a month’s worth of setbacks, the National Salvation Front regime in Washington was in a triumphalist mood. MacArthur’s chosen stooge Charles Coughlin, appointed by a rump reactionary Congress now controlled by a motley group of Republican collaborators and a patchwork of elevated far-right political nobodies, was already busy planning reforms to come with the New Order after the end of this little bout of civil unrest. MacArthur himself did little to discourage him, or the Congress enacting the NSF’s domestic agenda as though the Civil War were already won. But the cracks in that confidence were beginning to appear. Patton’s Bonus Army handily suppressed a White militia uprising in central Pennsylvania. Chafee’s Army of the Prairie drifted in and out of contact, and at times the reports that were received made little sense. The threadbare establishment forces in Helena were being routed, and a Montana Soviet Socialist Republic was being established in Butte. The DFLP party militant, the Minutemen, have created a bleeding sore all along the Mississippi River, and now seem to have St. Louis under their control. There hadn’t been any good news in the development of the Mexican Civil War in over a month, and now there were rumors that Villa’s revolutionary forces in the North were set to link up with Zapata’s in the South. In spite of intense fighting, Pittsburgh, and Toledo were still holding.

Yet still the General of the Armies of the United States remained irreproachable on his dais. Chicago would soon be rolled up, and with it one of the revolution’s hearts would be excised. And he was confident that the Marines on Long Island would accomplish the same for the second heart in New York.

The illusion came crashing down on 28 April. T-1 cavalry tanks from Chaffee’s 1st Cavalry Division began cutting into the Army of the Mississippi’s logistical tail. Too fast for howitzer crews not trained to deal with tanks, yet well armored enough to be safe from frontal attack from the Army of the Mississippi’s few 12.7mm heavy machine guns, even the light T-1s prove to be an unstoppable force of nature. The heavier T-2 infantry tanks follow in the wake of the light tank’s spearheads, mopping up makeshift bunkers and fortified trenches. Marshall’s headquarters become a pandemonium, and even all of his careful skill is not enough to turn the tide. The already faltering morale of his troops collapses, and mass surrenders begin to occur.

The 1st Marine Division on Long Island finds itself being hemmed in, as US Navy ships flying red flags begin landing Spartacist volunteers from Boston. Bombarded by air group of the USS Ranger, and trapped between a well-disciplined urban militia mass and Marine mutineers being ferried in to the rear, the 1st Marine surrenders within two days.

As news of the reversals of fortune begin streaming in, MacArthur finds himself fixated on a single cable. Patton’s stinging betrayal is now festering. The man he once considered his protégé has taken command of the defense of Pittsburgh, forming the Eastern Combined Antifa Group from the Spartacus League’s Nat Turner Column, the Pennsylvania Red Guards, and the Bonus Army. Worse, the tide seems to be slowly turning in the city.

Only when news comes in that General Marshall, finding his headquarters surrounded, has surrendered, though, does MacArthur begin to appreciate the world of trouble he is in.

Scenes from Vanguard (1987)

When Vanguard first aired on PBS-4 on 3 April 1987, it was the most expensive television program ever ordered. Conceived originally as a three hour feature film detailing the history of the unvarnished, unromanticized history of the American Revolution; under the ambitious (some would say vainglorious) direction of LJ Fonda, it grew into a sprawling six hour epic. After repeated battles within the Director’s Guild, and political action including strikes by the rest of the United Artists union federation, Fonda was retained on the project.

With a large endowment from the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a donation pledge campaign, the project was able to finish production. It debuted as the most watched show in the history of American television.

INT. WPA HQ – NIGHT

Three men enter a hall. Their leader, THEODORE “TED” ROOSEVELT III (Ed Harris) walks in with soldierly determination. The others, ROBERT TAFT (John de Lancie) and ORLAND LOOMIS (Kelsey Grammer), view their surroundings with disdain. They are clearly in the middle of a long conversation

LOOMIS​
…All I’m saying is that they are clearly trying to coax concessions out of us for when the lawful order is restored.
TAFT​
Don’t be daft, Loomis. We have no choice but to take these moves by the Communists at their face value.
ROOSEVELT​
I am inclined to agree with you Bob, but your suggestion that we cancel the alliance because of this is very premature. But we will be playing hardball with them.
The three storm through the hall, and enter the OFFICE without knocking.

Two men loom over a desk in the office, discussing the war effort. EARL BROWDER (Tom Selleck), points at maps with the stem of his unlit pipe. FLOYD OLSON (Peter Fonda) nods along.

Both greet the three interlopers with some amusement.

BROWDER​
Nice of you to stop by, Ted. Though we’re a bit busy trying to keep MacArthur from tightening the noose ‘round our necks—but we’re always open to suggestions to advance our democratic struggle.
ROOSEVELT​
“Our democratic struggle,” huh? That’s a nice way of describing planting a knife in our back.
TAFT​
We agreed, for the sake of our mutual anti-fascist struggle, to leave the economic question for after constitutional restoration. Your party has been testing that agreement since day one, but you assured us that this was either pageantry to boost morale, or the work of “left of the Party” rabble-rousers you could not control. Well, imagine our surprise when we find orders, signed by you, to declare the formation of a soviet republic.
BROWDER chews his pipe thoughtfully as he heads to close the door to his office.

LOOMIS​
Well? Do you deny it?
BROWDER​
No, I’m just surprised it took you this long to figure out. Come the First of May, we will be elevating our aims towards a higher calling, and I expect you to find it in yourselves to be on the right side of history.
TAFT​
What? You gave us your word when we accepted—
LOOMIS interrupts—

LOOMIS​
—Grudgingly—
TAFT​
—Grudgingly accepted Communist leadership in the struggle to restore the Constitution. We trusted you to not endanger our alliance with your petty politics.
PAN TO:​
OLSON​
Trust? I’m sorry, gentleman, but I was under the impression that our profession was politics, and not Sunday school teaching.
BROWDER​
This “order” you speak of merely recognize the political reality. The whole of the bourgeoisie, save the present company it seems, have given up on your hallowed Constitution. Why should the workers put any more faith in it?
BROWDER and ROOSEVELT face off over the maps on the desk. The faint crack of distant gunfire penetrates the silence.

ROOSEVELT​
That may be the case, but it is still the law. And the rule of law must be preserved. And yet we find, when the morning has finally come, and the darkest hours are over, that our supposed allies are undermining the rule of law too. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
BROWDER​
Aw, don’t give me that hokum. Your own vaunted Constitution was an act of lawlessness against the legitimate order when it was drafted and ratified.
ROOSEVELT​
I sympathize with your revolutionary aims, I really do. But the formalities of the law must be obeyed. When we have triumphed over the NSF, and restored the Constitution, your party can seek to institute socialism in a constitutional manner.
BROWDER​
Revolution is the negation of formality, comrade. This nation’s Founding Fathers understood that when they seized the moment and threw off the English yoke. Like it or not, the wheel of history keeps moving forward. The progressive bourgeois such as yourselves can join with us in instituting the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. Or you can oppose the march of history and be crushed by it.
TAFT​
Is that a threat?
BROWDER​
A historical truism.
WIPE TO:​

At a military camp south of Pittsburgh, Colonel GEORGE PATTON (George C. Scott) marches through the mud with his aide, Lieutenant WILLIAM BASIE (Ernie Hudson). He inspects a batch of tanks, American Christies and Soviet T-26s, as well as their tankers.

PATTON approaches a Soviet Volunteer, Lieutenant IVAN MATSKEWICZ (Robert Downey Jr.).

PATTON​
What’s your name, comrade?
MATSKEWICZ​
International Brigade volunteer Ivan Alexiovich Matskewicz, comrade colonel.
His accent is thick, but his English is very good.

PATTON​
And you’re in charge of this tank column? Well, we sure could have used your help defending Pittsburgh.
MATSKEWICZ​
Apologies, comrade. We arrived as fast as the boats and trains would take us. But we’re in good working order and ready to fight.
A RUNNER arrives, carrying an urgent communique. He slips in the mud in his haste to deliver the message. BASIE takes the communique while PATTON inspects the treads of MATSEKICZ’s T-26.

BASIE​
Sir, I think you better read this.
PATTON puts on reading glasses before taking the telegram
INSERT: Telegram close up​
PATTON​
(Reading)
To commander, Eastern Antifa Combined Group. In accordance with P.G.’s changing political line, you are directed to make any and all necessary preparations to evict the White regime from Washington with all deliberate haste. All measures should be taken to effect the apprehension of the traitor MacArthur.
BASIE​
March on Washington? Sir, we’re not even remotely prepared for the task.
PATTON​
Oh, there’s more Will. The Moment has come. We’re not an army fighting to preserve a dying bourgeois republic anymore. Our cause has been elevated.
BASIE​
About damn time, if I do say so myself.
1. He had been brevetted to Major General within the ranks of the traitor regime.
2. Consisting of 1 regular Army division, the 3rd Infantry, 1 National Guard division, the 35th NG Infantry, and two divisions of irregulars, the Illinois Patriots and the Missouri State Volunteers, which were window dressing on far right paramilitary groups under KKK leadership.
3. This is somewhat anachronistic; Metropolis is the autonomous republic that consists of the gigantic metropolitan area surrounding New York City.
4. The last sentence is almost word-for-word what the editor of the Daily Mail printed with regards to the rise of Hitler’s regime in Germany.
 
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Excerpts from William F. Buckley Jr., “Review: Our Bullets Are For Our Own Generals,Labor Literary Review, Vol XII, No 1, March 1967.

Perhaps Goldstein’s greatest strength is the tremendous amount of work he has put towards demythologizing the Revolution. In this way, it is the history text equivalent of Delaroche’s Bonaparte Crossing the Alps; only by stripping away the romantic veneer do the real admirable qualities come to light.

This has been made possible by an extraordinary level of access to the papers, effects and personal recollections of the men and women involved in the tumultuous days of the Revolution. There is, of course, a litany of the sordid that inevitably comes out in such an intimate examination. For example, the chapter titled “Settling Accounts,” an aside which leaves the general chronological flow of the work to discuss the record of atrocities committed by revolutionary forces, from the street executions of putschist saboteurs, to the pillaging of homes and churches tied to the reactionary causes, to the outbreak of revenge rape and murder by guerillas in the South.

Goldstein quickly dismisses the conventional apologetics. This may have been war, he argued, but it was revolutionary war. He recontextualizes the body of thought on just war, focusing heavily on developing a modern, secular theory of jus in bello (right conduct in war). To defend revolutionary terror as merely reactive, done in retribution to reactionary terror, is insufficient. For Goldstein, drawing as much on Kant as Marx, revolutionary terror must be justified solely on its own relation to the human emancipatory struggle. He uses this schema to separate the just use of terror from the indefensible.

Some of the more hyperbolic elements of the intelligentsia have denounced Goldstein’s work as being tantamount to counterrevolution. There is no point in mincing words: these people are idiots. As Goldstein notes in the chapter’s conclusion, “There is an old evangelical aphorism, which was quickly adopted by motley revolutionary militias across the nation: ‘Fight the devil with fire.’ Some of these graffiti are preserved as revolutionary monuments. There can be no doubt that revolutionary terror can be an effective tool. But like fire it is a dangerous tool that must carefully controlled in its application. When the application of revolutionary terror expands beyond a narrow focus on active, organized agents of counterrevolution, it becomes counterrevolutionary itself.”

This historical lesson has not yet been fully learned, I fear. It is perhaps too easy to dismiss Goldstein’s analysis; after all the revolution still succeeded even with the alleged excess. Goldstein himself offers no diagnosis, but it is easy to draw a conclusion that revolutionary excess has helped to engender enduring problems of reaction within the nation.

It is worth noting at this point that this book’s reception in the FBU has not been at all lauded. Far from being celebrated as presenting a “revisionist schism within the intelligentsia,” as Harry Haywood condemned, on the whole it has been treated by the FBU commentariat as a an apologetic for the permanent revolution.

Excerpts from Alasdair MacIntyre, Organic Law in the UASR (Oxford University, 1979).

It is worth sketching out a brief history of the formation of the current organic laws. Their development is a disjointed process, formed by the rapid evolution of conditions during the Revolution. When the first All-Union Congress of Soviets met in Chicago on 4 February, they developed and passed two resolutions that would later be retroactively incorporated into the constitutional canon. The first, a set of rules governing the procedure for the national CoS, as well as a framework for constituent provincial, city and local soviets, was ratified in the first week.

This act, the Fundamental Principles for the Soviet Congresses (Grundgesetz für die Rätekongress)(1), was an overtly revolutionary document, reflecting the mood of the Workers‘ Party rank-and-file. The second, passed after an alliance was brokered with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and the anti-putsch left-wing of the Republican Party, followed a more bourgeois conciliatory tone. This more moderate document, often styled as Labor’s Declaration of Independence, harkened back to the First Republic’s founders and their national liberation struggle against the British Empire.

The Labor Declaration formalized the dual power agreement between the CoS and the Provisional Government. It admitted a mass of DFL and Republican delegates to the Congress, and made the Provisional Government responsible to the CoS, foreshadowing the eventual relationship between America’s standing parliament, the Central Executive Council, and the Congress of Soviets. The resolution also committed to a combined antifascist struggle to put down MacArthur’s unlawful coup, and restore the 1787 constitution. In return, the resolution committed the states and parties to call a new constitutional convention after victory was achieved to "correct the deficiencies of the existing constitution."

Of these, the later has been given the most symbolic weight, but the former has the greatest enduring influence on American government. The Fundamental Principles still governing the basic rules and procedures of matryoshka style government, and the rules governing elections. Most notably, the absolute, irrevocable guarantee of universal adult suffrage to all residents of the country. As we shall see, this document's enduring legacy, both functional and symbolic, has shaped the evolution of American jurisprudence.

The Labor Declaration's is part of the body of law that establishes a legal continuity between the United States of America and the Union of American Socialist Republics. As constitutional law itself, it is a threadbare document. Its content is primarily aspirational, much like the original Declaration of Independence. It endures in the national mythology of the UASR because it offers a clear, concise statement of principles. After difficult compromises, and bitter political fights, the I Congress of Soviets and the Provisional Government managed to produce a document that captured the aspirations of most Americans, from the most steadfastly class-conscious to disaffected bourgeois liberals. "Under the old regime of industrial feudalism," the Labor Declaration argues, "politics is the shadow cast on society by capital."

It diagnosed the evils facing America as systemic ones, not personal or human evils. The regime of industrial feudalism is "a great machine with no conscious designer, the runs entirely on its own internal logic outside of human control." Even MacArthur, the bête noir of the day, was no more than an agent of historical system.

The Labor Declaration lionized the great liberal principles of the Bill of Rights, condemning the bourgeois regime for destroying fundamental liberties like habeas corpus and the right of free speech. It lists, in great detail, the numerous abuses of power by the federal and state governments during the previous twenty years before condemning the turn to outright fascist reaction to contain democratic forces. But beyond that, the document is deliberately vague.

It talks in vague terms, like the establishment of a socialist republic after the defeat of reactionary forces. But its real importance is that serves as the legal resolution, under Article V of the old constitution, directing the states to vote on whether or not to send delegates to a new constitutional convention.

Provisional First Secretary William Z. Foster's "Red Dawn" speech, broadcast 1 May 1933.

Foster, serving as the spokesman for the new troika that had taken the reins of the anti-fascist resistance, delivered the most famous speech of the 20th century a little after 10 a.m., Central Standard Time. The address is heard acrossed the nation. It is the first over declaration of a revolutionary overthrow of the old system, indicative of the bloodless coup that had swept through the Provisional Government. Opponents of revolution were silence or co-opted, and now the Workers' Party would definitively act in a vanguard role for the class struggle.

Comrades, I do not have to tell you that we are living through the American people's darkest hour. You have seen it first hand with the relentless march of the jackboot through our nation's country side and great cities. Everywhere the forces of reaction tread, they leave suffering and death in their wake. Their collaborators, the faithless Junkers of American industry, who would sooner see the whole house burn down than part with a single coin, have at each and every step of the way enabled this atrocity.

This is a class war being waged against the American masses. It is conspiracy by the opulent and powerful and their hangers-on to drive the American worker into chains of slavery. And in this mad grab for power, this bourgeois reaction, helmed by the despot MacArthur, has waged war not only on the proletarians of all nations, but against all the hallowed institutions they claim to uphold.

The fascists have accused the class-conscious proletarians, schooled in the university of the working classes that is the Communist Party, of being godless. These same fascists have immolated churches, and their congregations of poor but pious Negroes, in a campaign of racialist reactionary terror. They have claimed to have protected the constitution by systematically destroying all its protections, and overthrowing the lawfully elected government of the United States. They respond to the democratic will of the people with bayonets. Make no mistake, fellow sufferers, this is not just a political conflict. They have waged a total war against human decency itself.

The senselessness of this war against democracy is a fitting end for the bourgeois epoch. Amidst America's stupendous wealth there is also stupendous poverty. Our industry, the great machinery of abundance has left us in want. The great wealth piled high by centurie of unrequited toil is being squandered in fruitless war at the merest hint of political levelling.

But amidst this savagery, all hope is not lost. The Antifascist forces have fought on, enduring hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their freedom. The brave men and women of the Red guards and workers' militias have delivered several humiliating defeats to the Fascists. Their forces striking the great proletarian strongholds of the North East and Midwest have been routed.

The old world, mired in the hate, greed and bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress, is in its death agony. We have only to seize the moment and strike while the iron is hot. What the new world will bring is up to us, and right now we can safely say this is not a question of Left or Right. There is only forward. We must resist the temptation to give into the comforts of familiar evils and rebuild the corrupt and rotten old world. We will only be condemning our children and our children's children to poverty and misery, doomed to repeat the cycle of class conflict and revolution yet again.

We must have the courage to make a clean break with the past. We can no longer be satisfied with a simple fight to restore the old Constitution and the old world it represents. We must fight for a new world; a decent world that will give men good work, give youth a future, and give old age security.

Capitalism promised these things to the pious and hardworking. It could not fulfill that promise to the great multitudes, and in our current epoch it has failed to deliver its rewards even to the masters of capital. It never will.

It is up to the American worker to fight to fulfill that promise. In the name of democracy and socialism, let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriors, to do away with greed, hate and intolerance. We shall cast aside the old order, and under the leadership of the Popular Front, uniting all proletarian and liberal political forces, we shall tear down the despotic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.

To mark the begining of this new dawn, we declare the formation of a Union of American Socialist Republics as a free association of the workers, soldiers, sailors, farmers and people of the United States.

Excerpts from the AH.com political chat thread "The lawful government of the United States"

RuleBritannia said:
May Day is tomorrow. Though you Yanks prefer to call it "International Worker Day" or "Revolution Day" or other claptrap. May Day is for may poles, keep your bloody Bolshevism out of it!

But I digress; since May Day is tomorrow, I thought I'd start a memorial thread for the legitimate government of the United States of America, illegally overthrown by Browder-Foster-Reed troika, and now in permanent exile on the island of Cuba. And while I still hope for an eventual restoration of the lawful American constitution, this is not bloody likely. The insurrectionary regime in Washington is probably here to stay, and if the people on this forum are any indication, it seems that most Americans have accepted the yoke enthusiastically. And no one, not a single soul, has seen justice for the Red Terror, nor has their been any admission of wrongdoing.
flibbertygibbet said:
This will end well...
Ubermunch said:
RB, you've just come back from a kick. What the hell man?
LeninsBeard said:
KittehKommitteh said:
What a crock! The right of revolution is absolutely fundamental to any social contract. The Hoover's government had lost all legitimacy. And lost an election by the largest landslide in American electoral history, I might add.

The Second Republic was already in its terminal phrase during the 32 election. MacArthur raised its corpse in a twisted, perverted zombie version of the old government, which continues to linger on in spite of all efforts by revolutionary forces to bury it.
AdmiralSanders said:
KittehKom, I recall not last week you were blasting the bourgeois sentimentality of Kantians and the social contract. Now you're parrotting it to justify the revolution?
I'm sorry, but no, you can't have it both ways. You may think it's permissible to hit below the belt so long as it is in service to the cause, but some of us have principles and that doesn't fly with us.
FallingOutsideTheNormalMoralConstraints said:
I agree with RB, to a point (never thought I'd see myself say that).

Hoover's suspension of habeas corpus, the declaration of insurrection and the suppression that followed were all legal under some admittedly strained interpretation of the law. MacArthur really didn't assume anymore executive powers than the much hallowed Abraham Lincoln did. He just did it for a cause we find abhorrent.

Trying to justify the revolution on bourgeois terms is going to be a losing proposition every time.

The Zeroth Doctor said:
I dunno RB, it's hard to disagree with the historical record. There was, by any reasonable account, an illegal regime that had seized power by military force occupying the capital and much of the country. To me, that seems to make the constitution dead letter, but I'm not a lawyer.

But regardless, the Reds did go through the trouble to legitimate their new regime under the old Constitution. They called an Article V convention, and named that convention the Congress of Soviets. That Congress drafted new constitutional documents (some, admittedly, before it was even called as a constitutional convention), and these were subsequently ratfied by all the states.

Sure it's post facto legitimacy, but they went through an awful lot of trouble to make it seem above board. It definitely had popular legitimacy, which is sort of depressing to me. I mean, we tell ourselves stories about illegal regimes occupying America to console ourselves, and some people imagine entire networks of thought police and hidden gulags to enforce it. But the truth is the American people chose pretty overwhelmingly to abandon fundamental liberties like the right to private property, and they continue to affirm this.
DeOppressoLiber said:
Wow, look at all this heresy...
JaneTheAdmin said:
RuleBritannia, you just came back from a kick. Insinuating that all Americans have been brainwashed is bordering on flamebait, espescially with such an inflammatory thread. Cool it.

LeninsBeard, one week kick for picspam. This isn't your first offense, and you've been here long enough to know better.

flibbertygibbet, DeOppressoLiber; one sentence replies are not appreciated in polchat. Continued behavior like this will result in a Warning for spam.

(1) The American German dialect tends to use more English style orthography.
 
Excerpts from the AH.com thread "WI/Challenge: A more successful Rose Offensive?"

LeninsBeard said:
I admit that military affairs really aren't my strong suit, so I thought I'd field this question to the board's gun porn enthusiasts. OTL's Rose Offensive was a considerable success for the nascent UASR, and probably the first indication that the revolutionary regime wasn't just playing house but actually the beginnings of a stable government. But can it be made more successful? As I understand, it accomplished pretty much all of its operational aims but at a somewhat higher cost than anticipated. And if so, what effect would that have on the Civil War? Might we see a quicker end of unofficial support to the White regime? Could it even mean preventing the White exodus to Cuba?

Ubermunch said:
Maybe I'm just dumb, but why is it called the Rose Offensive? It seems a bit, well, frou frou for a military operation.

DeOppressoLiber said:
Because roses start blooming in mid to late May. Besides being red, roses have also been part of the traditional symbolism of the socialist movement, particularly the women's sections.

To answer my hippie peacenik comrade, it would be extremely tough to push any further, logistically. Along much of the front, it was basically a mad dash by cobbled together Red Army groups on the heels of retreating White units. They encountered only sporadic resistance. They crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky virtually unopposed, and the Kentucky NG units refused orders to leave the state with the Whites, electing instead to surrender to the Reds.

Most of the fighting was of the partisan variety, with the White Army wisely choosing to avoid battle and reorganize from a position of strength further South. In the western theater, the only major fighting occurred in the retaking of St. Louis.

In the East, there was more resistance, because MacArthur's own reserve was fresh and unmolested, and he took personal command of the military situation while the White government began evacuating.

It's Round 1 of the grudge match between Patton and MacArthur. Patton's forces were chaotically organized, and he had fewer artillery guns and aircraft at his disposal. MacArthur's troops had poor morale, and their operational security leaked like a sieve, but they were still well disciplined and fought tenaciously. They made the Reds pay to take Baltimore, and stymied the advance into West Virginia.

By then, they were pretty much spent. They had to consolidate before they could begin the next operation, aiming to trap MacArthur and his troops in the salient around the capital. That meant bringing the state and local administration into compliance, and the establishment of soviet government, repairing roads and bridges, and fixing the supply bottlenecks that had hampered offensive action. In particular, both sides reliance on a large fleet of commandeered civilian cars and trucks created its own set of problems. Cross-country operation is hard on equipment, and the motor pool never had enough spare parts of the right kind.

Empire of Endless Monologues said:
I'll defer to DOL's assessment as she's much more versed in American military history. There are a lot of barriers to making things go well, beyond simply handing MacArthur the idiot ball, as the somewhat wish-fulfillment driven "Cuba Libre" TL did.

There's not a lot the Reds can do to avert MacArthur establishing the National Socialist People's Vacation Utopia(1). And this is one of those few cases where I actually root for the Reds. Seriously, that guy is a bastard coated bastard with bastard nougat filling, and it creeps me out how he has been lionized by some people on this side of the Atlantic.

flibertygibbet said:
Empire: I'm sure this gets asked a lot, but were you in the military?

Empire of Endless Monologues said:
Yeah, Air Force actually. Maintenance, mostly on the Avro Vindicator bombers. Still a bit of a military nerd even though I left the service years ago.

Suede Denim Secret Police said:
Realistically, I don't think any more resources could be brought to bear within the time constraints. The Reds had more than one battle to fight. For one, the move to revolution was not uncontroversial. It came at the cost of increased civil unrest in the North, because not everyone who was on board for the proletarian-led restoration of the Constitution and institution of a new governing philosophy within that framework was in support of open revolution (though this was able to be mitigated with the Popular Front strategy and somewhat muted support from bourgeois liberals like Roosevelt. and Rob Taft.

They also were fighting to link up the West coast insurrection, and that meant taking control of a very vast and sparsely populated territory in the plains and mountain west. This was not a quick and easy process, even with the support of local reds, and at many times large portions of the states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Dakota and Nebraska were under White control, usually in the form of private armies hired by the local captains of industry and landlords. But Pinkertons and the like could not effectively take control of the mining or logging industries, to say nothing of any town linked to a railroad.

Still, their pacification took up men and resources, and securing the vast hinterland was considered a higher priority than direct confrontation with the White armies in the East.

Excerpts from Albert E. Kahn, Storming the Gates of Heaven: A History of the Comintern, (Cambridge, MA: Progress, 1962).

After reconvening hastily in April, the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) was immediately beset with difficult questions. The American Workers Party had long been the favored son of the Comintern due to its commanding organizational presence, and thus had been offered a degree of autonomy and influence within the ECCI that no other party save the CPSU itself had. But by April, it was clear that they had gone off the reservation in a serious way.

The ECCI would not give a public rebuke for fear of making a bad situation worse, but in private, the American member of the ECCI's presidium, Solon DeLeon, was chastised by Stalin directly. The secret internal minutes of the ECCI from 19 March to 2 May detail a body that was both dismissive of the chance of revolutionary success as well as unwilling to leverage resources to support it.

With considerable difficulty, and several end-runs around Comintern bureaucracy, DeLeon was able to push the Comintern into the organization of International Brigades to bring volunteer fighters as well as materiel aid to the American revolution. But this was regarded only as a token propaganda gesture. One that, according to the arch-Stalinist ECCI chairman Palmiro Togliatti, had gone horrifically right.

The call to arms was taken up enthusiastically even in the face of secret directives to the various Communist parties and front organizations of Europe to quash excessive adventurism. Arms, hard currency and volunteers began collecting in port cities waiting for opportunities to ship out to the revolution. No national section turned out more enthusiastically than the mass of German communist exiles, still smarting from the loss of their own country to fascism.

On 1 April, Stalin reversed himself. The growing mutinies on the American west coast, as well as new intelligence from sources within the British and French governments, convinced the highly cautious Soviet leader to venture blood and treasure in the growing American revolution. British or French intervention, the NKVD concluded, would be nearly impossible. The diplomatic rebuke from open intervention would not matter to a pariah state like the Soviet Union.

When the American provisional government and the central committee of Antifa called for world revolution on 1 May, both Stalin's government and ECCI were shocked. But Stalin did not waver in his commitment to supporting the American revolution, even if his government's official position was still one of the restoration of the Constitution. The Reds' position continued to strengthen as May wore on, and the arrival of International Brigade volunteers as well as Soviet war materiel continued to bolster their military situation.

In a major break from the past five years, the ECCI issued a call for an Emergency World Congress of the Comintern without even consulting Stalin. The Comintern would no longer be an apparatus of Soviet foreign policy. It finally began taking its first steps as an authentic arbiter of the international communist struggle.

The Communist parties of Europe were slower to react to the changing dynamic. The German sections of the Comintern, once the most thoroughly dominated by Stalinist orthodoxy, rapidly shifted into the American camp. The French section remained even more orthodox than Stalin, often stymying the flow of aid to America. The Anglophone sections were reserved, fearing opening themselves up to another round of state repression. The Italians were the wild card; having long since been forced underground or into exile by the Fascists, their reactions were mixed. Much of the PCI had been thoroughly integrated into the Stalinist power structure. But others had not, and many exiles who had gone apolitical rejoined the movement, enthusiastically supporting the American revolution.

Excerpts from Alexandra Stein, "The Other Revolutionaries," in Intersection: Race and Gender in America, (Charleston: Commonweal, 1985)


While it is important to emphasize the immense role the proletarian revolution played in the advancing the struggle for racial and gender equality in America, too often the conventional narratives of revolution neglect the role that woman and people of color played in their self-emancipation. The revolutionary struggle has been cheapened by a white washed narrative, which in bitter irony, depicts a revolution handed down from above, where white communists settle the accounts of white racial guilt.

As much as we romanticize the spontaneous, democratic, organic struggle for revolution, and its triumph in 1933, the pages of our history books, both popular and academic, seldom acknowledge the role that politically conscious women and people of color played in not only their own struggle for freedom, but also the role they played as conscious agents of class struggle.
[…]
Nadezhda Meyer is perhaps the most important historian of the American Revolution. Her work, both academic and popular, has been exhaustive in chronicling both the personal and economic forces at play in the revolution. And yet, until the last five years, her work has been strangely silent about race and gender.

Her seminal work, The Revolution, first published in 1958, spends more pages discussing the struggle of poor white Southerners to overcome enmity towards blacks to forge a united front against a regime that, for all its pretenses about restoring order, was a kleptocracy where class rule was maintained by paramilitary brigands, than it spends on the black workers who overcame mistrust born of centuries of slavery, lynching and terror, often waged by the poor whites they were now collaborating with. And not by a small margin; nearly four times as many pages are spent on the white half of struggle in the South compared to the black half.

This is an oversight not born of malice, but ignorance. In a 12 March 1983 interview in the journal Dissent, Meyer frankly lamented the shortcomings of her most celebrated work. In spite of this, The Revolution remains the foundation most history curricula across the Union.

This is not a process that can be idly edited out of the history books. The shortcomings of the Workers' Party's racial emancipation program continue to haunt us. The revolution against Jim Crow was largely incomplete, and often times it was deliberately held back by the Party spetsy to "maintain class unity." The farce of "separate but equal" was weakened, but still remained in many of the Southern republics. The black autonomous republics gave blacks a measure of political and economic self-determination, but it did not improve their access to the political systems of the republic that they lived in. The Workers' Party allowed an abrogation of their principle of one man, one vote, reducing the representation citizens of the autonomies in the republican soviets. And while citizens within the autonomies were able to exercise their right to vote largely free of terror, black citizens outside of the autonomies had no robust protections of their rights.

While the letter of the law abolished punitive voting restrictions and guaranteed the right to vote, the enforcement of these provisions was almost nonexistent. The flagrantly illegal practices of local election administrators, who often denied franchise to the few blacks who overcame the threat of extralegal violence by whites to exercise their rights, were seldom stopped or punished by the republican governments.
[…]
As we have seen, there is a paradox within scholarship, in which man women and people of color in the intelligentsia have de-emphasized their own emancipatory struggles in the historical narrative. The role that women played in the gender revolution is strangely de-emphasized. The historical record is presented as a case of white male communists giving rights to women. The tenacious fights that women communists engaged in to secure those rights is omitted in nearly every elementary or middle school level history textbook published from the 1930s until 1980. High school texts of the same era often give perfunctory references to this struggle, omitting the long record of infighting within the communist movement on these subjects.

The dramatic reshaping of gender rights during the First Cultural Revolution does not owe its success to the selfless actions of male communists. It owes its success to the cadres of powerful and influential women in the Workers' Party, who often fought bitterly to secure reforms. Due to the Party's continued adherence to democratic centralism, these internal political struggles within the Workers Party, over gender no less than race, were largely invisible to the larger public.

The role of the historian becomes all the more crucial. The record of this political struggle is now freely available to anyone who wishes to sift through the mountains of documents. The modern historian has a duty to the present to inform the public about the parts of the past they did not even know existed.
[…]
The 1933 Emergency Party Congress (held 12 November) was the locus of a number of contentious political struggles, none more bitter than the selection of the Party's Legal Commission. Tasked with a top-to-bottom overhaul of the American legal system, its importance cannot be overstated. The left communist faction of the Workers' Party, now in triumphant control of the Party apparatus, found itself in a civil war, which pitted the pure-and-simple revolutionists against "cultural revolutionists." The cultural revolutionists were seen as heretics who rejected the primacy of class struggle. Evelyn Reed's appointment as head of the Legal Commission was a bitter pill for the pure-and-simple revolutionists.

Even after the Party adopted the Commission's proposals into its platform, it took years for it to be fully implemented. The abolition of obscenity laws passed by a thin margin in the Party Congress. It took several years for the decree to be fully implemented by the union republics. The abolition of the marital rape exemption was less controversial, but still found many barriers to its ratification, to say nothing of endemic enforcement problems.

The promotion of contraception found similar barriers. While many in the Party had long insisted that, in the words of John Reed, "economic freedom for women means sexual freedom for women," these communists, both the influential as well as the rank and file, were still products of the society which produced them. The struggle for cultural revolution to overcome the legacy of the bourgeoisie has never been quick or easy. Thus, in the hallowed halls of the Party Congress we see esteemed revolutionary leaders like Jay Lovestone arguing against contraception essentially because they feared it would turn young women into sluts.

But the revolution had started a fire which the Party was powerless to stop. The explosion of women's political organizations during the Cultural Revolution came in no small part because women communists no longer needed to subordinate their political needs to the larger goal of class struggle. The Women's Liberation Union, previously a moderately sized front organization, exploded in membership through the mid to late 30s. By 1937, it had become one of the most powerful tendencies within the Workers' Party. Though most of its nearly million strong membership were women, many young men had joined or considered themselves fellow travelers.

The WLU became steadily more militant as it gained members. It criticized the "old boys' club" among the party leadership, as well as the endemic sexual harassment, not just within the country at large, but also within the party. But its most successful and influential work in the 30s was the revolution against the domestic sphere. Starting in the large cities and new agricultural communes, the WLU fought for measures to socialize domestic labor. A variety of tools were implemented, many of which have become cornerstones of American culture. The promotion of communal housing, public baths, daycare, and the social wage(2) owe to the activism of the WLU.

The WLU championed the preservation of the women's combat units from the Civil War, colloquially referred to as the Amazon Brigades, as well as their later integration with male units. They successfully campaigned for research into hormonal contraception, as well as for increased scrutiny towards domestic violence. They also began the long fight against victim-blaming attitudes towards victims of sexual assault.
[…]
In the battle for history, no figure is as polarizing as Harry Haywood. One part theoretician, one part political leader, Haywood is the face of the African National Congress during the 30s, 40s and 50s. While other black leaders were often highly influential in this era, men like Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Dubois are more known for their role in the broader communist struggle. This often compromised their ability to take a decisive role in the black liberation struggle. Haywood, by contrast, is remembered as a leader of black liberation first, and all of the often adversarial implications therein.

And he was often in fierce political battles with fellow Party members. On three separate occaisions from 1934 to 1940, the Party Central Committee voted on expelling Haywood from the party, each time retaining him by narrow margins. The controversial nature of his leadership of the ANC is reflected in the differing opinions about him held by modern whites and blacks. To whites, he is a stern and uncompromising zealot for the cause of equal rights. Occasionally, they'll remember that his promotion of tactics of civil disobedience was a practical concern, not a moral principle. But for blacks, Haywood is remembered quite differently.

Haywood was the man most responsible for ending the terror of living in the South. It is entirely understandable that historically conscious black men and women are not as horrified as whites by Haywood's connection to the Red Terror, or the counterlynchings the ANC engaged in when the judicial system failed to act against white terrorism.

This was a role that Haywood had taken since the Civil War. As the leader of the Spartacus' League's Nat Turner Column, he cut a swath through the Fascist held territory in the Mississippi River valley. Vengeful poor whites as well as black sharecroppers joined in droves. Here in the Deep South, the class war was at its bloodiest. Thanks to Haywood's personal leadership, the thinly suppressed rage of poor whites and oppressed blacks was channeled into an effective instrument against reactionary institutions. He contained the worst of revolutionary excesses while ensuring that justice was still served. (Indeed, Haywood is fondly remembered in the women's movement for his harsh punishment of war rape as well as for his enduring alliance with the WLU).

After the Civil War, Haywood retired from his commission in the WFRA to serve as the chief administrator of the Deep South Reconstruction District as well as a member of the Politburo of the Workers Party. The cause of black self-determination won its early successes thanks in no small part to his passion for the project, and his respect among the new managerial class in the South.

(1) You can thank Japhy for that one.

(2) A broad term that encompasses a variety of institutions and policies. In this specific sense, the author refers to labor exchange programs, some as part of worker's benefits from their employment, others established by local governments, where families could have free or very cheap access to laundromats, cleaning services, cantinas, childcare, and eldercare. In the broader sense, the term covers of the social provision of housing, health care, and transportation.
 
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Settling Accounts

"They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Claire"
--Florence Patton Reece, "Which Side Are You On"

Excerpts from Ernesto Guevara, The Development and Implementation of the Revolutionary War Thesis, (Lexington, KY: Hans Kahle Military Academy Press, 1976)

On 7 June, the Provisional Government's newborn Military Revolutionary Committee set to the difficult task of turning the unwieldy guerilla armies attached, to varying degrees, to the cause of revolution, into a cohesive revolutionary military force. The Rose Offensive had highlighted the major weaknesses of the lose organization of Antifa and its confused (some would say nonexistent) chain of command.

The first concession to practicality was the adoption of "bourgeois" military ranks, and the enforcement of martial discipline norms. They refused, however, to destroy the democratic and proletarian nature of the revolutionary military. Elections of officers were retained, along with the abolition of officer class privilege.

On 18 June, with reorganization and consolidation still underway, the Provisional Government established the Armed Forces of the UASR. Under this reorganization, Antifa was transformed into the Workers' and Farmers' Revolutionary Army. This was not a complete metamorphosis; many of the units in Antifa resisted being folded into a professional military. The Spartacus League remained loyal to their purposes as the Comintern party militant, resisting complete integration into WFRA until the very end of the Civil War. The Minutemen of the DFLP opted to disband at the end of the conflict, with most of its members returning to civilian life, with a fraction opting to enlist in the regular military.

The anarcho-syndicalist Libertarian Fighters' League steadfastly refused integration until 1940, when its depleted remnant joined to take part in the world revolutionary struggle. While the LFL held onto its paramilitary status, it accepted with some reluctance the dictates of the revolution's military leaders, for they had no desire to actively hinder the revolutionary struggle.

The Red Guards units, having long since abandoned provincialism for the revolutionary struggle, enthusiastically integrated into WFRA. Patton, Chaffee and other mutinying units of the US Army likewise accepted this new station. A small nucleus of captured warplanes and Soviet loaned aircraft formed the nascent Workers' and Farmers' Revolutionary Army Air Force.

The lingering question was what to do with the US Navy. Most of the admiralty had refused participation in MacArthur's putsch. Most were put under house arrest by the White Army or its paramilitary kapos. While a few vessels and bases had provided support to White military takeover, it was always unenthusiastic. The en masse mutinies in the Pacific fleet had destroyed White control of the West coast, but the organizational infrastructure and hierarchy of the Navy refused to commit to either side. It was clear, however, that they could not remain neutral forever. With the success of the Rose Offensive, and the Reds' consolidation of power in the Great Plains and Mountain West, a clear winning side emerged.

The Provisional Government had left the Navy question for a later date. On 4 July, as the MRC was busy making plans to liberate the City of Washington and, if possible, capture the renegade MacArthur, the commander of the United States Battle Force, Vice Admiral William H. Standley, sent a telegram to Secretary-General Earl Browder and Acting President Upton Sinclair, proposing the establishment of a Workers' and Farmers' Revolutionary Navy.

This was no doubt a cynical move. Standley had gone outside the chain of command in doing so; his superiors remained reluctant to fall in with the revolutionary leaders. While he was an old-school Social Democrat in his politics, Standley was by no means a communist sympathizer. He could, however, fake it quite well, and his own personal letters detail a certain measure of social patriotism guiding his decision. While he did not love the revolutionists, he hated MacArthur and everything he stood for, and the glimmer of hope that the Reds might preserve the democratic spirit of America's first and second republics was enough to overcome his overblown fears of communist tyranny. But we must not ignore the practical aspects of his conversion; Standley used his role as a bridge between the more reluctant admirals and the revolutionary government to preserve much of the class privilege of the naval officer class.

There was another aspect to this Navy's turn to the revolutionary government. Having languished in the Great Depression, hemorrhaging men and materiel, the Naval establishment longed for an opportunity to rebuild itself. The Reds made it clear that after the defeat of the Whites, they would be writing a blank check to the WFRN to safeguard their cradle of revolution. The chance to dethrone the British Royal Navy, the reigning world champion, was irresistible.

[…]

Patton, now serving under the brevet rank of Lieutenant General, had learned quickly from the failures of the Rose Offensive. He would apply what he had learned studying Frunze and Zapata during the Interwar into a new theory of revolutionary war suited for an urban, cosmopolitan and industrial military. One of his first acts as the commander of the Eastern Combined Army Group was the establishment of the political commissariat. This innovation served to apply the revolution in the concept of revolutionary war; the commissariat would serve multiple functions within the Red Army and its paramilitary auxiliaries.

As secular chaplains, they would monitor and improve the morale among soldiers. They would also provide political instruction, giving the units a clear revolutionary mission and how to carry that out in practice. The Red Army needed to cultivate the image of being a liberator, not a conqueror. Military aggression towards civilians would be counterrevolutionary. To that end, the commissars would also assist in the maintenance of discipline among the units. In particular, they would serve to monitor politically questionable units and keep them on message. And of course, to mold the uninitiated into dependable communists.

The political commissariat always suffered from a shortage of suitably qualified personnel, particularly in the Civil War. Patton was equal parts military man and revolutionary, and he wanted the members of the commissariat to maintain this balance without compromising either. The commissariat's first members were mostly comprised of members of the underground Socialist Officers Club, of which Patton had been a member, and party members who had been veterans of the First World War.

The highly sensitive nature of the coming campaign necessitated compliance with revolutionary war doctrine. As Patton had learned during his education at the Virginia Military Institute, the enmity between Northerners and Southerners was intense and deep-seated. An army comprised of Northerners invading the South, even to overthrow a hated tyrant, would not sit well.

For this reason, Patton emphasized the necessity of close cooperation with active partisan groups in enemy territory. In the context of the Civil War, this meant moving men deep behind enemy lines, to serve as agitators and advisors to partisan resistance. The first step towards meaningful liberation would be to bring locals into the communist struggle. The degeneration of the old social order in the South provided a perfect opportunity to do so. Re-establishing communication with Workers' Party cells in the South enabled the revolutionary leaders to turn the long festering resentment of the "Bourbon" class into a tool to bring a large mass of Southern whites into the communist cause.

The racial issue could potentially destroy the whole operation. While white and black partisans had been cooperating against the NSF regimes in Southern states, this was always at arms' length. Patton needed them to join the same revolutionary army and fight side by side. Fortunately, the US military had no shortage of Southerners, many of whom had been radicalized into active and committed agents of proletarian revolution. They would serve as the public face of the campaign to liberate the South.

[…]

Patton's revolutionary war doctrine emphasized the subversion of the enemy's institutions of power, particularly state power. During the Civil War, this was a developing doctrine, spurred on by the defection of the NBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and much of its infrastructure thanks to their personal loyalty to Hoover. Before the revolution, Patton and Hoover had been rivals; as chief of Army Intelligence, Patton had run into many jurisdictional battles with Hoover's NBI. Both shared, however, a contempt for the bumbling and heavy handed state police, and the better funded Secret Service.

Patton had subverted Army Intelligence with the assistance of the NKVD and Workers' Party's own network. But Hoover had long suspected him of being a double agent. He could never prove it, but the phantom force that seemed to thwart attempts to meaningful hinder revolutionary groups was too focused to be mere bad luck. Thus, when Hoover communicated, in secret, his intentions to defect to Workers' Party intelligence network, Patton was perhaps the most surprised of all. He was not above exploiting such base opportunism though; the intelligence Hoover fed him enabled his decisive victory against MacArthur.

[…]

Patton's revolutionary war praxis played to communist movement's strengths in an industrialized country. All of the centers of state power depend on the communication and production infrastructure, of which a mass of proletarians are a necessary component. Thus, on 3 August, cities throughout Virginia erupted into general strike and insurrection. Railroads were paralyzed, and telegraph stations were seized. The workers in war industries turned their arms on their masters, and began arming their comrades. While MacArthur's reserve units were tied down trying to restore order, Patton began his combined arms offensive.

Patton's air troops, and the tireless Soviet Air Volunteer Group wrested control of the skies from MacArthur. They struck at enemy airfields, and intercepted recon and bombing sorties. Patton's mechanized forces struck at several schwerpunkt along the front. MacArthur's small contingent of T-2 infantry tanks and British built Vickers Medium Mark III proved unable to defend against the rapid exploitations by the faster T-1s and T-3s. In particular, the J. Walter Christie designed T-3, with its dual-purpose 37mm gun and high mobility, excelled in the deep operations role. Motorized infantry and truck towed artillery exploited these breakthroughs.

MacArthur's own troops, including his excellent artillery, began to crumble, unable to deflect the fast dagger stabs of the Red Army's combined arms forces.

In spite of the mechanical and logistical difficulties the Reds faced, (Patton remarked that the paint was still wet on the T-3s, having been rushed from prototype to production only a few months prior), by day four of the battle it became clear that this would be a decisive Red victory. As the Reds threatened encirclement, MacArthur opted for breakout instead of going down with the ship, leaving very little time for the White government to evacuate.

While Patton had captured thousands of MacArthur's troops, and all but destroyed his tanks and artillery, the core of the White Army slipped out from the noose. Patton was unable to pursue, having exhausted his supplies of ammunition and fuel in the five days of furious fighting. Washington and the bulk of the State of Virginia had been liberated. Rather than dangerously extend himself, Patton chose to focus on consolidating gains and bringing the South onboard with the revolutionary regime.

Excerpts from The Third Republic, a college level history textbook published in 1975.

The liberation of Washington signaled the death knell of the degenerated remnant of the Second Republic. Born in the fires of America's First Civil War, the Second Republic had seen the dramatic change in the United States from a union of sovereign states into a united federal republic. In this period, the nation finally freed from the backwardness of the Slave Power, rose to prominence on the world stage, developing into an advanced stage of capitalism thanks to the decisive destruction of feudal remnant institutions.

As the capitalist economy had advanced, class conflict grew with it. The history of the whole of the Second Republic is the history of class war, from the violent repressions of the labor movement and the institution of Jim Crow segregation after the Civil War, to populist revolt in the west, and finally the development of a unified workers' party in the early 1900s. The workers' vanguard endured eras of imperialism, and despotic repression at home, emerging in 1920 as a powerful and unified movement of proletarian revolution.(1)

The Second Republic had built great cities, and colonized the entirety of the continent. It built great engines of wealth and scientific progress. But that powerful edifice of civilization was built on a mountain of corpses; genocided Native Americans, oppressed blacks, and exploited immigrant workers. As the revolutionary leader William Z. Foster eulogized, "the machinery of abundance has left us in want."

With the American Revolution now fait accompli, the leaders of the revolution were now confronted with the difficult struggle to institute a workers' republic. In this endeavor, they faced numerous obstacles, both internal and external.
[…]
One of the most contentious dilemmas of the early Third Republic was the uneasy relationship between the majority Communists and minority Anarchists within the workers' movement. The Anarchists, though small in number, were well organized and highly politically active, constituting an agitational faction to the left of the Party. The lines were not always clear; much of their organizational structures were not strictly anarchist in their constitution, and involved many party members in their leadership. And for all their disagreements, and the anarchists' skepticism of the Leninist centralism of the communist movement, they had a history of cooperation as long as their history of agitation.

When the Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti found themselves persecuted by the bourgeois state, the communist International Labor Defense had rallied to their aid. The Workers' Party organized mass demonstrations against their unjust imprisonment. Anarchist agitators in the Free Workers' Union were among the Solidarity federation's most effective organizers. Anarchist units had fought in the Civil War right alongside Communist and Social Democratic cadres.

The various anarchist cadres, united under the Libertarian League, were now at the crossroads. The new government was no longer just theoretical, but reality. They faced the contentious question of collaboration or confrontation. While in their hearts, many wanted to spur the revolution on towards a stateless free association of workers, the experiences of the civil war and the threat of foreign reactionary terror had fundamentally changed the movement's core outlook. The Libertarian League voted, with considerable controversy, to endorse Emma Goldman and Rudolph Rocker's proposition that an authentic "workers' republic" was preferable to anti-worker states, and sought to formally join in the great experiment.

The Workers' Party, already divided as to the path the revolution would take after the defeat of the Whites, now had to decide whether to admit the Libertarian League as a faction within the Party. Some even on the left wing of the party considered this a dicey proposition. After a contentious vote, the Libertarian League was admitted into the Party, and Emma Goldman joined the Provisional Government. The DeLeonist orthodoxy within the party had a strong affinity for syndicalism, and as Foster and Reed had argued, the need for a united front was paramount. Foster had purposefully mixed anarchist and Marxist phraseology in his oratory and writing, particularly in his Funeral Oration for Norman Thomas.(2)
[…]
In September, Earl Browder sought to formalize the revolutionary alliance for the post-revolutionary world. The parties and organizations which had united to put down the MacArthur putsch and establish the UASR would create a bloc to govern the revolutionary state. After several rounds of political hardball, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the loyalist Democrats and Republicans agreed to join the United Democratic Front.

The socialist sympathizing bourgeois liberals united the remnants of their old bourgeois parties into a unified Democratic-Republican Party, harkening back to Thomas Jefferson. The UDF created a venue for constructive political discourse between the revolutionary parties.

On 20 September, as the Reds began pushing deep into the White held territory in the South, the governments of Great Britain and France extended diplomatic recognition to the UASR, holding the new government as the lawful successor of the old United States. Concomitant, the UASR agreed to exempt securities held by foreign governments, as well as by citizens of these foreign governments, from the general repudiation of debt the government planned. Diplomatic recognition by much of the world's sovereign states followed quickly after; only the various reactionary regimes in South America, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy continued to treat the MacArthur regime in Cuba as the legitimate government of the territory comprising the former United States.
[…]
The states began voting almost immediately for a new constitutional convention. By October, the requisite 2/3rds needed had been reached; the states had designated the All-Union Congress of Soviets as the constitutional convention. By November, 3/4ths of the states had ratified the revised Fundamental Principles of the Soviet Congresses, essentially rendering the 1868 Constitution defunct.

After electing a fresh slate of delegates to the Provisional Government, the Congress of Soviets established a Constitutional Committee, chaired by Solon DeLeon, to draft additional constitutional documents to give form to the new republic.

Excerpts from the AH.com news thread "Recently declassified documents point to British plans to intervene in the American Revolution"

Gally said:
Found this originally in The Morning Star, but I knew that would immediately bring cries of "Bolshevik agitprop!", so I found the same story on the Daily Torygraph.

It's really fascinating reading. I'm by no means a military expert, but a lot of these seem like hare-brained bullshit. Honestly, I think it was a bunch of bored British military types spitballing for lack of better things to do. I mean, who thought that sending T.E. Lawrence to lead a cadre of American expatriates to slip into America across the Canadian border and wreak havoc behind enemy lines. It was like they figured, hey, this guy did a lot working with "Arab savages", surely he'd be able to pull the same miracle in America.

I think T.E. Lawrence said it best, "Your proposal is stark, raving mad. Leave me out of it."
DeOppressoLiber said:
Yeah, I downloaded the docs last night. I'm only a little bit way through it. Top kek

I think they sincerely believed the braindead "outside agitator" thesis that still guides so much of Franco-British thinking about dealing with radical groups. They seem to sincerely believe that there was no mass support for the revolution, that all it would take is a bunch of paladins on white horses to ride in and rouse the people to put down the outside agitators.

I think the British Army just wanted something to do. The Royal Navy, as far as I've seen, seemed to be much more level headed. I think they were in a genuine panic, because one of their closest rivals, who they did not seriously count as a threat, were now hostile. It's been a long time since West Point, but as far as I remember, the only official action between the British government and the UASR was a tense showdown between the HMS Invincible(3) and the Lexington(4)in the Caribbean. The Lexington's battle group had been ordered to interdict ships carrying White refugees to Cuba et al. The Invinciblehad been sortied along with a squadron of light cruisers as a deterrant. Because the Lexington crossed into what Britain considered its territorial waters, the ships confronted each other off the Bahamas. It might have resulted in a shooting match, because the British commodore was a bit overzealous in the application of his orders. But when a seaplane scout reported the Kitty Hawk(5)entering the area, he backed down. Prudent of him; I guess he didn't want to be on the second battleship to be sunk by the Kitty Hawk.
AdmiralSanders said:
To be perfectly honest, the chances of the Kitty Hawk's meager air group sinking a more modern battleship like Invincible is quite low. Unlike the Idaho, the Invincible had been retrofitted with additional anti-aircraft defenses (Idaho, along with most of the "Standard" type battleships, had their retrofits delayed or cancelled due to the Depression). Not only was she twice as heavy, the Invincible was a far more advanced design, with greater protection against torpedoes as well as the plunging fire that killed her namesake, which gave it better protection against dive bombers as well.

I mean look at what she was carrying in 1933. A squadron of F2F-1 biplanes, a squadron of SB2F-1 dive bombers (basically an F2F that can carry a measly 250 kg of bombs) and a squadron of obsolete T4M torpedo bombers, which couldn't carry torpedoes large enough to threaten a Revenge class battlecruiser.

The only planes that were a threat were the handful of TBDs, which had been undergoing sea trials aboard the Kitty Hawk when the revolution began.(6)

Felix Leiter said:
I wouldn't put too much stock in this. It is the job of the general staff to plan for contingencies, even seemingly unimaginable ones. Canada had Defence Scheme No. 1, which was planned in the 20s, the era of very close diplomatic relations with the United States. Britain had Plan 1923, war plans for the destruction of France's colonial empire to force her to the peace table in the event of the unthinkable.

There's a reason why these plans went into a file and were forgotten until the statutory mandated declassification occurred; the General Staff worked out that any meaningful intervention was totally unworkable, and would only drag the country into a disastrous naval war, leading to the loss of Canada and the likely destruction of much of the Royal Navy's strength, something that other rivals would no doubt exploit.

Which is not to say that they didn't do things unofficially. The British Army had advisors in MacArthur's military from almost the very beginning, and their first-hand experience of modern mobile warfare ensured dramatic changes occurred in British military doctrine. France's more conservative military establishment did not have access to this wealth of data, and proved far more resistant to change. And honestly, that's really the reason why they unofficially extended advisors and credit to the MacArthur regime. By May, the British government expected a decisive Red victory in the Civil War. And even a White victory would be destructive to British interests; they wanted to learn what they could before America moved from friend to enemy.

The Fraternal Revolutions

The American revolution was not the only one to occur in 1932-33. It wasn't even the first; the Second Mexican Revolution had begun in July 1932 as a broad based popular front took up arms against an increasingly corrupt and reactionary Calles regime. When Calles deposed many populists from the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), he unwittingly began a firestorm.

Many embittered leaders of the First Revolution vowed to take up arms against what they declared a counterrevolution led by Calles. Veterans flocked to their cause, but the revolution does not begin in earnest until the US is locked into a constitutional crisis by January 1933. Freed from the fear of American intervention, the agrarian rebels in the South, led once more by Emiliano Zapata, become increasingly bold.

The Mexican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM), underground but with influence in a number of front organizations, including the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM), uses the degeneration of social order to begin arming a small urban guerilla force. With much of the Army and police tied down combatting Zapata's Liberation Army of the South and Villa's North Division, it becomes increasingly difficult to engage in organized repression against the CTM in Mexico's urban centers.

The Mexican agrarian rebels look warmly towards the revolution brewing in their northern neighbor. Before WWI, the Socialist Labor Party had organized aid and relief to revolutionary groups. In turn, many American Marxist agitators had gone into temporary exile in Mexico during the First World War and the Biennio Rosso. In particularly, Zapata was influenced by the importation of Marxist theory. At the outset of the Second Revolution, Zapata couched his agrarian revolution in Marxist terms, and sought support from the Comintern.(7)

Zapata's "People's War" found common cause with the Mexican workers' class struggle. An alliance is brokered between Zapata, the left-wing dissidents of the PNR led by Lázaro Cárdenas, the CTM led by the Marxist intellectual Vicente Lombardo Toledano, and the PCM under the loose leadership of Diego Rivera. Initially stalemated throughout early 1933, the shifting tide in the American revolution bolsters their cause. After the liberation of Washington, the American Provisional Government begins cooperation with the Mexican Alliance of National Liberation. They promise an offensive to liberate the Mississippi Valley, allowing the two revolutions to link up. In the interim, modest monetary aid from both their own coffers as well as the Soviet Union is channeled into Mexico.

Spartacus League and Red Army troops march into New Orleans in early November. With MacArthur evacuating the remains of his supporters to Cuba, and desperately trying to hold on to America's other colonial possessions, the American Revolution is essentially over. At the request of Mexico's provisional revolutionary government, the UASR commits troops and arms in a "police action" to support the "popular, legitimate government" of Mexico. The flood of American aid and advisors tints the pink left-wing nationalist revolution to socialist red. One the eve of the taking of Mexico City in 12 January 1934, Zapata announces the unification of the Left PNR, the PCM and agrarian liberation armies into the Workers' Party of National Liberation (Partido Obrero de Liberación Nacional, POLN).

The leaders of the Revolution announce the formation of Socialist Republic of Mexico (República Socialista Mexicana). A new constitution, modeled on the American revolutionary constitution, is promulgated on 5 May 1934, tying the new revolution symbolically to the historic struggle of national liberation against the French imposed monarchy.

The New World revolutions did not end at Mexico. Many other national liberation and populist insurgencies were swept up in the mounting red tide. With the UASR's triumphant call for world revolution echoing through the new world, every revolutionary group in the New World has a ready patron. All that is required is a genuflection to the Comintern cause. But while the UASR is bold, there are still limits. The Comintern directs communist parties in British, French or other European dependencies in the New World to adopt popular front alliance tactics with reformists, and to shy away from insurrection and direct action, at least for the time being. But in the various independent states in North and South America, the various communist parties, thanks to their position as the conduit of foreign aid, begin to explode in profile and membership. In some cases, such as Nicaragua, the local populists merge their movements into the Communist Party. In others, such as Columbia or Argentina, Marxist parties take an influential role in national liberation fronts or electoral revolutions. In Chile, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Comintern aligned parties take power directly by revolution or putsch.

The revolutions in Hawai'i, Puerto Rico and Panama are somewhat independent of the American Revolution. But owing to their previous association with the US, and the strong Marxist leadership, these former territories become Associated Union Republics in the UASR.

By 1935, the revolutionary surge in the Americas begins to wane. Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela were rocked by internal revolts and abortive attempts at proletarian revolution, but ultimately the establishment holds. The European colonies of the Guianas likewise endure.

To Reign in Hell

The Republic of Cuba, officially an independent protectorate of the United States, was ramrodded into becoming a state by the occupying US Army. The rump White Congress confirmed the Cuban legislature's declaration shortly before evacuating Washington. While some, including the First Secretary, had been kidnapped and turned over to the Reds, most had escaped, along with a flood of reactionary militants, rich bourgeois and their running dogs.

On 24 December, General of the Armies of the United States Douglass MacArthur infamously announced "I shall return," before stepping onto the good ship Brumaire. As the ship steamed out of Mobile Bay, a squadron of traitor US Navy ships escorted her to Cuba, while the Royal Navy stymied the efforts of the WFRN to interdict the exodus of counterrevolutionaries.

Upon his arrival in Cuba, the National Salvation Front dominated Congress appointed him President-for-Life and Defender of the Constitution; a post he generously vowed he would only hold until the restoration of the Constitution in the Mainland. Cuba's native elite reluctantly accepted the imposition of MacArthur's own brand of "national socialism," needing the might of the US Army remnant to putdown the peasant uprisings in the countryside, and fearful of Red invasion.

Former President Hoover, living in exile in Great Britain, took this opportunity to denounce MacArthur as a traitor. Though he had long held his tongue out of a sense of shame, and faint hope that everything would turn out for the best if MacArthur won in the civil war, he now openly confessed that he had only enabled MacArthur's putsch under extreme duress, including threats to his own life as well as his family.

The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized

TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE

She could hear the cracks of rifle shots in the distance. It spurred her on; she tore through the lacquered wood wardrobe, desperate to find practical clothing for her planned exodus. She stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest. The whole plantation seemed eerily silent.

After a dreadful silent minute, she heard the front door downstairs creak open and then slam shut. Heavy boots clopped across the wooden floor, up the stairs. The boy who wore them cried out, "Mary!"

"I'm in the master bedroom," she replied.

The boy stumbled into the bedroom. He doubled over, wheezing as he tried to catch his breath. "Brother-dear, come sit down," she said. She patted her little brother on the back reassuringly, and pushed him into dad's rocking chair. Dad had been a tall, barrel chested oak of a man. His only son, barely fifteen, was dwarfed by the chair his father had made. Still, little Jeb Jr. looked very much like his father. Sometimes when she looked at his curly brown hair, or his green eyes, or his square jaw and uneasy smile, she had to fight back the urge to cry. Because sometimes it seemed like little Jeb was the only proof that her father had ever existed.

When Jeb finally caught his breath, he looked at her, the pained expression of terror chiseled into his face. "The sheriff sent me home to get you. He said we needed to get out of the county, cuz they're coming for us.

A pit formed in her stomach. She had already known, but she figured she'd have a little bit more time. As her brother explained how the sheriff had told him that an armed column carrying red flags was marching into town, it suddenly hit Mary. The revolution wasn't some distant battlefield that had claimed her father. It was now coming to her doorstep and she was powerless to stop it. The tenant farmers and hired help had all deserted the plantation. Hell, she thought bitterly, some of them done went and joined up with the Reds.

She remembered when they announced they were downing tools a week before. Their leader, a tall but soft-spoken Negro named Verne had knocked politely on the front door. When she answered, he calmly explained that the plantation workers would no longer be slaves to the bourgeoisie, whatever the hell that was. They were laying down tools, and find their own destiny elsewhere.

She hadn't taken the news well. She lost her temper, slapping him and calling him a "no good nigger" and other hateful things. If her mother had been alive to see her little Southern belle talk like that, it would have destroyed her. She instantly regretted it. He calmly stated that he believed, like Christ, in turning the other cheek, and though she was a "class enemy" in her role as landlord and master, he never felt any personal dislike towards her. He wished her the best of luck, and calmly walked away.

When she had calmed down from her conniption, it occurred to her that this was probably the first time Verne had ever dared to stand up to a white person. He seemed invincible while doing it, like a bird finally freed from its cage. She almost envied him. He could walk away, but she was left to care after the family property alone. Nineteen years old and "of an unmarriable disposition," as her neighbor Mr. Jackson had put it. Now her family legacy was about to be taken from her by an armed mob of niggers and white trash. She bit her lip in frustration.

She sent Jeb out to the barn to saddle up two horses, while she gathered up food and other travelling supplies. She scraped up all the cash she had on hand, perhaps eighty dollars in total. It would have to do, and if it didn't, dad's old Colt Single Action Army would make up the difference.

Finally, she was ready to leave it all behind. She took off the beautiful blue silk dress that dad had bought her for her sixteenth birthday. She put on a pair of work trousers left behind by one of the tenants, and a beige blouse. She hid the jewelry she had sentimental attachment to in a handkerchief, which she stuffed in a satchel next to camp supplies.

She stopped on the upstairs landing. She looked at the ornate wallpaper, the richly varnished wood banisters, the photos of mother and father carefully hung on the walls; this might be the last time she ever saw her home.

She heard yelling outside. Splintering wood, cries of pain and the panicked neighing of a horse. "Jesus Christ…" she muttered as her heart skipped a beat. Instantly she feared the worst; the local Vigilance Committee had talked of Negro rape gangs roving the countryside. It was something that all young women in Mississippi had been taught to fear, and as a young girl she'd thought it was just a bogeyman parents used to frighten their children into being good. She had only been nine when she saw her first lynching. A black boy, fourteen years old. He'd been accused of assaulting a young white girl, Miss Mattie Clanton from three or four houses down the old country road.

An awful thought crept in while she nervously loaded the Colt Peacemaker; this was their revenge for decades of abuse and lynching. She shoved that thought aside as she an down the stairs. Her little brother was in trouble; that was what mattered right now.

She found a group of white men circled around a figure on the ground. They hooted and hollered as they kicked him. She was leveling the Colt with murderous intent at the man who looked like the biggest and meanest of the bunch. But before she could steady her shaking hands, something hard hit her in the side of the face. The Colt flew from her hands as she fell down on the hardwood deck. There was a loud crack, and suddenly her ears were ringing. The world seemed to spin. There was a man looming over her. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand as he smiled wickedly at her. His mouth moved, but she couldn't hear anything through the ringing.

"—Old Jeb Forrest's daughter has some moxy."

She tried to put a name to his face. She'd seen his ruddy, gap-toothed smile before. Ah, yes, John Tanner. Dirt poor farmer, odd jobber and unrepentant sinner.

The gang that had been beating Jeb had stopped. They had him by the hair on his knees. For a moment, they stood there aimlessly, as though waiting for Tanner to lead them somewhere.

Tanner grabbed her roughly and yanked her to her feet. He pushed her up against the siding. Wood splinters and paint flakes dug into her back. His hands were around her neck before she could resist. He didn't squeeze though. His predatory grin terrified her; her heart began to race, and suddenly she felt cold and clammy.

"Well, well. I'd always wanted to give Jeb Forrest what for. But seeing as he's dead, and you're right here, ripe for the taking, I guess I'll have to take my revenge on you. You boys will get your turn soon enough."

She let out a blood curdling scream as he dragged her inside. She cried for help, begged him to stop. She beat at his face and chest with her fists. That only earned her a punch in the gut. As she gasped for air, she heard Tanner cackle, "Bring that little runt in here. Make him watch."

Tanner through her on the dining room table. He was standing in between her spread legs, grinning at her like a pig in shit. She kicked helplessly, unable to get any leverage. As she tried to sit up, another pair of rough hands grabbed her and held her down. She instantly recognized him. Robert Lee Baxter had been her classmate until eighth grade. He worked at the general store in town, smiled at her every time she had visited, and always said such kind things to her. He might have been sweet on her, but he had never attempted to court her. But she had thought he was a nice young man, even if his family was white trash.

Now Bobby Lee was waiting his turn to rape her. It felt like betrayal. Tanner had always been a mean son-of-a-bitch, and no one ever expected anything else from him. As terrified as she was of him, she was sure she could endure his cruelty. But Bobby Lee's betrayal hurt her deep in her soul. She couldn't bear to look at either of them.

She heard Jeb hollering to her side. He was begging for them to stop, swearing to God and on his mother's grave that he'd do anything just so long as they left her alone.

They laughed.

Jeb was crying now. In between his sobs he said "I'm sorry, Mary, I'm so sorry." As Tanner roughly tore open her blouse and yanked her trousers off, she tried to tell Jeb to be strong. But the words were lost. This was horrible, and no one deserved to see this done to a loved one. Trying to be stoically lost in apathy would simply be inhuman.

"It's not your fault, Jeb," she cried.

It hurt, like someone stabbing her with a dull knife. The pain didn't recede. She found the minutes bleeding together in her agony. He smelled like sweat, alcohol and cheap tobacco. If she hadn't been in so much pain, she might have gagged.

She didn't know how long it had been. Tanner stopped as suddenly as he had started. She heard an unfamiliar voice yell, "What da hell is goin' on in here?"

Bobby Lee's grip loosened. Tanner was motionless at the end of the table, looking over his shoulder. She sat up as far as she could. A black man stood in the door way. He wore tattered khaki safari clothes. A red scarf was tied around his arm. It took her a moment to process; he was pointing a .303 Springfield at Tanner.

"This ain't none of yer concern, nigger. Go on and git before I rethink joining your little revolution."

"You know I can't do that," the black man stated calmly. "You were sent here to gather supplies and if needs be, flush out any fascist partisans. General Haywood specifically ordered no brutality towards civilians."

She heard more men tramping through the house. The few that she could see also wore red armbands. She bit her lip and silently thanked God.

Tanner's thugs had drawn their weapons as well. As they nervously waved their pistols around, more men entered through the kitchen door.

One of them, a white man with short, kinky black hair, spoke with a Yankee accent. "What do you think we should do with them, captain?"

The first of her rescuers said, "Well, commissar, what's the punishment for rape?"

The commissar said, "Well, it's up to the revolutionary tribunal's discretion. I'm sure I could recommend that the people's tribune seeks a lenient punishment." He chucked, "Or we could shoot them all like dogs right here, right now. Your choice, captain."

The captain's aim remained steady. "You heard the man. How this plays out is entirely up to your discretion, Tanner. But please remember that you're a bunch of no good peckerwoods who've never fired a weapon in anger in your life. My men, who have you surrounded and outnumbered, are battle hardened veterans."

After a moment's hesitation, Tanner withdrew, holding his hands above his head. His thugs set their weapons on the floor. Everything started to blur together. She didn't know how long she sat trembling on the edge of the table. She felt something on her shoulders. She panicked and tried to shrink away.

"It's okay, ain't no one gonna hurt you no more," said the captain.

It was one of mom's old quilts wrapped around her shoulders. He must've found it in the hall closet.

She'd always despised men like him. The only thing worse than a nigger was a communist. The only thing worse than a communist was a black communist. She thought about the hateful things she had said to Verne. This Red Army captain had no reason to be kind to her. They were on opposite sides of a class and race war.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Those peckerwoods found an excuse to bully someone. I'm sorry I ever tried to work with them." He looked hurt as he said it.

"No, why are you helping me? Aren't I your enemy?"

"No, you're not," he said calmly, as though he was explaining things to a small child. "The system is the enemy. The old world that made us enemies is gone now. We're leidensgenosse now."

"What?"

"Sorry, it's hard to be a party member without finding German worming its way into how you talk. It means 'fellow sufferer.'" He was silent for a moment. "I know that it is hard for you to trust me. You certainly know I have no reason to trust you. But we're building a new world, and I'd like to think that new world might let go of the hate of the old world. At some point, the chain of evil must be broken."

She found herself at a loss for words. Somehow, he made her feel so small.

"You should get some rest. We've sent for the town doctor to check up on ya. If you'd like, my men can make you something to eat or drink. You and your brother are going to be safe now."(8)

(1) As you have seen in previous chapters, this is a gross oversimplification bordering on a lie.
(2) It is worth remembering that IOTL, at different periods of his life Foster wore very different hats. He had been a Wobbly and a syndicalist until well after the Bolshevik Revolution. But at some point he metamorphosed into an orthodox Stalinist hardliner. ITTL, his revolutionary leadership embodies this duality, a tension between libertarian aspirations and the awful tyranny he is willing to countenance to achieve that end.
(3) Post WWI battlecruiser, Revenge-class, equivalent to OTL's G3 class.
(4) Post WWI battlecruiser, equivalent to OTL's Lexington class
(5) Purpose built aircraft carrier, CV-2. A one off, displacing 18,000 tonnes full load.
(6) The planes listed are roughly equivalent to their OTL namesakes, but since this is probably the only time they'll appear in the TL, I think I can afford this laziness.
(7) As you may have guessed, Zapatismo is TTL's equivalent of Maoist third worldism.
(8) This has been the hardest thing I've ever had to write. The experience has been like pulling nails out of my body. Agony, but the story needed to be pulled out.
 
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Declaration of the Rights of Person, Toiler, Exploited Peoples and Citizen

Declaration of the Rights of Person, Toiler, Exploited Peoples and Citizen

Ratified 24 December 1933

Preamble

It is precisely because rights neither natural, owing to the inexorable laws of the universe, nor ordained by God, but rather legislated by humans, that they are so precious. In the degeneration of the Old Republic, we the peoples of the Union of American Socialist Republics have witnessed the limits of bourgeois legalism.

We recognize the truth that the order of society is a product of class conflict. No matter how well articulated or thoughtfully legislated, the rights of persons, toilers, exploited peoples and ultimately all citizens in class society are dead letters, extended at best only in the most convenient of times, and savagely curtailed whenever the material logic of political economy finds it expedient.

This Declaration of the Rights of Person, Toiler, Exploited Peoples and Citizen is a social contract, ratified by the Congress of Soviets of Workers', Farmers', Soldiers', and People's Deputies. It is a promise made by the revolutionary vanguard to the whole people, and to all succeeding generations, never to forget the painful lessons of despotism and class oppression.

It is a living promise, an entrenched law that shall serve as a statement of principles to guide the revolutionary experiment in the coming years. It is a binding promise to the revolutionary government, requiring of it to secure the fundamental freedom and dignity of all its subjects.

It is an affirmation of the most cherished goal of the revolutionary vanguard, to seek a condition of society in which there shall be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor slave, in which all peoples shall enjoy freedom and equality of condition, in which life will no longer be ruled by cruel necessity, but instead devoted to the pursuit of happiness.

Article I

All humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of comradeship. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, whether by race, color, creed, sex, language, religious or political opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article II

All persons born or naturalized in the Union, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the Union and of the Socialist Republic in which they reside. No member of the Union shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges, rights or immunities of citizens; nor shall any party to the Union deprive any person of life or liberty without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.

Article III

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all its forms.

Article IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. No warrants be shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article V

No law shall be made or enforced that abridges the right of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of the broadcast and recorded media. The right of the people to peacefully assemble and participate in politics shall not be infringed.

Article VI

No one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel and unusual punishment, nor shall any punishment be disproportionate to the crime committed.

Article VII

No person shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article VIII

No person shall be held to answer for any capital or otherwise infamous crime unless upon indictment by a Grand Jury, nor shall any person be made to answer twice for the same offence, nor shall any person be compelled to bear witness against himself.

Article IX

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. Everyone is entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of any accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have a compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have legal counsel for his defense.

Article X

Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.

Article XI

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Article XII

The UASR is founded upon the doctrine of state atheism; no law shall be made privileging any religion, its institutions or its adherents over any other, or over nonbelief.

Article XIII

Everyone has the right to work and the right of free choice in employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment. The right of workers to manage their workplaces shall not be infringed. The right to form and join independent trade unions shall be inalienable.

Article XIV

The Union of American Socialist Republics is a socialist state; the state, natural resources, and the means of production shall belong to the People, to be administered fairly and democratically for the common benefit of all.

Article XV

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article XVI

Everyone has the right to education, funded in whole by the polity. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups.

Article XVII

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Article XVIII

The universal age of majority shall be eighteen. All persons of this age are entitled to vote, and may stand for any office within the Union. The right to vote, individual or collective, shall not be infringed.

Article XIX

The security of the workers' republic rests upon the armed mass of the whole people. To this end, the right of the Soviets to form militias, provide for the training and arming of any militia, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms in accordance with the reasonable limits of a free and democratic society, shall not be infringed.

* I've incorporated some of the language of the US Constitution (for obvious in-universe reasons), as well as some of the language of OTL's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides a pretty good guide to the cutting edge of rights based legal thinking of the period.
 
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Basic Law of the Union of American Socialist Republics

Basic Law of the Union of American Socialist Republics

Ratified 15 March 1934

Preamble

The first chapter of American front of the world communist revolution has come to a close. The workers of the Union, a collection of many nations and creeds, have at last brought about their human emancipation. Under the leadership of the Workers' Party, an alliance of industrial workers, small farmers, tradesmen, sharecroppers, sailors and oppressed peoples, has destroyed the domestic threat of fascist reaction. The revolutionary vanguard has defeated all attempts by the bourgeoisie and landlords to bring the people back into bondage.

The men and women of the revolutionary vanguard have overcome the late degeneration of capitalist society into total barbarism. We will not go back to the old world, where great machinery of abundance served only to leave the great multitude in want, where there existed one law for the rulers and one law for the ruled.

The workers of America, having taken power through organized class struggle must now forge ahead. We will make a new world from the ashes of the old, freed from the greed, hate, ignorance and intolerance of the old society, with its classes and class wars. We reject the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, whether in the form of the liberal oligarchical state or the fascist state.

At this critical stage in the world communist revolution, we the workers and oppressed peoples of the United States, have resolved to continue our struggle until the final victory of the proletarians of all nations is achieved. To that end, to serve as the instrument of our class emancipation, the workers have instituted the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. The workers' republic, unlike the bourgeois state, is not the instrument of class domination. In the workers' republic, the rule of men by men gives way to the administration of things. The libertarian society of socialism is predicated on the fact that the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all.

The workers' republic cherishes the individual freedom and democratic agency of its citizens. Absolutism, a relic of class society, is antithetical to its very nature. It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow mentality of humble subjects, to institute a state with unrestrained power. The workers recognize that freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it. Rather, it is the ultimate aim of the workers' party and the revolutionary socialist project to end man's inhumanity to man.

We seek a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain-sick brain workers, nor heart-sick hand workers; in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all—the realization at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth.

To defend the free association of workers from reaction, organize free and fair relations and administration in the lower stage of communism, promote the development of the material conditions of the higher stage of communism, and to advance the world communist revolution, we, the Congress of Soviets of Workers', Farmers', Soldiers' and Peoples' Deputies, do hereby establish the Union of American Socialist Republics as a federal socialist republic and a permanent, indivisible Union until the world victory of the proletariat and the establishment of world communism.

Article I: Organization of the Union

Section 1

The workers’ republic is established as a North American Union of Socialist Council Republics, or a Union of American Socialist Republics. The political form of the workers’ republic shall be a socialist federation of the toiling people.

Section 2

The Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and People's Deputies, which grew and attained strength as a result of the overthrow of the landlords and capitalists and the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat, constitute the political foundation of the UASR.

Section 3

All power belongs to the working people, as represented by the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and People's Deputies.

Section 4

The socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the means of production constitute the economic foundation of the UASR. Bearing in mind as its fundamental problem the abolition of the exploitation of men by men, the entire abolition of the division of the people into classes, the suppression of exploiters, the establishment of a socialist society, and the victory of socialism in all lands, it is resolved:

  1. For the purpose of attaining the socialization of land, all private property in land is abolished, and the entire land is declared to be common property and is to be apportioned among farmers without compensation of the former owners, to the measure of each one's ability to till it.
  2. All forests, treasures of the earth, and waters of general public utility, all equipment whether animate or inanimate, model farms and agricultural enterprises, are declared to be common property.
  3. As a first step toward complete transfer of ownership to the workers’ republic of all factories, mills, mines, railways, and other means of production and transportation, the soviet law for the control of workmen and the establishment of a supreme economic council is hereby confirmed so as to insure the power of the workers over the exploiters.
  4. The transfer of all banks to the ownership of the Workers', Soldiers' and Peoples' Government, as one of the conditions of the liberation of the toiling masses from the yoke of capital, is confirmed.
  5. For the purpose of securing the working class in the possession of complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all workers be armed, and that a Revolutionary Army and Navy be organized and the propertied class disarmed.

Article II: The Workers' State

Section 1

The All-Union Congress of Soviets of Workers', Farmers', Soldiers', Sailors', and People's Deputies is the supreme instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Supreme executive power derives solely from the mandate of the masses expressed through the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and People's Deputies.

Section 2

All cities, towns, municipalities, communes and villages within the UASR shall be governed by a duly elected soviet, and shall be uniformly and proportionally represented according to population in the regional and provincial Congress of Soviets.

Section 3

The provincial Congresses of Soviets shall elect deputies to the All-Union Congress of Soviets according to a manner established by law.

Section 4

The All-Union Congress of Soviets shall be convened by the Central Executive Council at least twice a year. A special Congress may be called on the Congress's own volition, or by a call of Soviets representing not less than 1/3 of the population of the UASR. The Central Executive Council and/or the Presidium may call special conventions of the Congress.

Section 5:

The Congress of Soviets shall elect a Central Executive Council. The Central Executive Council shall be entirely responsible to the Congress of Soviets. In between sessions of the Congress of Soviets, the Central Executive Council shall exercise the legislative and executive powers of the union.

Section 6

The Congress of Soviets shall elect a Presidium, to fulfill the role of head of state of the UASR.

Article III: Federalism


Section 1

The Union is a compact among the toiling people of many nations and many states, and as such this compact is a federal republic. Members of the Union have rights and duties according to their historical situation within the Union.

Section 2

All states of the former United States, excepting the special exceptions granted by the Congress of Soviets upon the formation of this Union upon the petition of their peoples, are Integral Union Republics. Integral Union Republics, as they were under the United States, are permanent members of the Union, and possess no right to unilateral secession. Any other member of the Union has the right, with the consent of the Congress of Soviets, to irrevocably declare itself to be an Integral Union Republic.

Section 3

Oppressed nations within the boundaries of the former United States proper, have the right to form as they so choose, Autonomous Union Republics within and/or among the territory of the Integral Union Republics. This shall include, but will not be limited to, the African nations of the Deep South, and the tribal groups of the Native American peoples. As part of their role, Autonomous Republics possess the rights to autonomy in administering cultural practices, and the mandate by the All-Union government to economic development.

Section 4

Nations annexed to the UASR, but not part of the United States proper, maintain the right to form Associated Union Republics within the Union. Associated Union Republics reserve the right to self-determination, and may organize their internal structure with autonomy, and reserve the right to secede from the Union unilaterally. Associated Union Republics have mandates of developmental assistance from the All-Union government.

Section 5

The All-Union government shall have the right, with the consent of member yielding territory, to form Union Communes as federal enclaves for the purposes of government administration. At the time of ratification, the former District of Columbia shall be established as a Union Commune as the Debs Commune, to serve as the seat of the All-Union government. The All-Union government retains the right to establish its capital as a matter of law.

Section 6

Within the limits of the territory of each Integral Union Republic and each Autonomous Union Republic, the supreme organ of power is the Congress of Soviets of the Republic, and in Congressional recesses, its Central Executive Council, in a form described by the Union Republic's constitution.

Section 7

All members of the Union shall give full faith and credit to all public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other province. The All-Union government may by law prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings be proved and the effect thereof.

Section 8

All members of the Union shall enjoy the right of extradition with all other members.

Section 9

The Union of American Socialist Republics shall guarantee to all members the preservation of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat, and shall protect each against invasion.

Section 10

The following powers are prohibited to all provinces:

  1. No member shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation.
  2. No member shall print or coin money.
  3. Neither bills of attainder nor any ex post facto laws shall be made.
  4. No member shall, without the consent of the All-Union Congress of Soviets or its constituent organs, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports. The net produce of all such imposts and duties shall be for use in the public trust of the Union, and all such laws shall be subject to revision and control by the All-Union Congress of Soviets.
  5. No member shall, without the consent of All-Union Congress of Soviets, keep troops in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with other provinces or with foreign powers, or engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

Article IV: The Central Executive Council

Section 1

All legislative and executive powers herein granted shall be vested in the All-Union Central Executive Council, which shall be constituted of a Council of People's Deputies which shall represent the whole of the UASR, and a Council of the States, which shall represent the member republics of the Union.

All members of the CEC shall be members of at least one executive committee of an All-Union Secretariat, but no member shall chair more than one committee.

The All-Union Central Executive Council shall serve as the standing legislature of the UASR whenever the Congress of Soviets is not in session.

Section 2

The Congress of Soviets shall elect the members of the CEC's Council of People's Deputies from among its members according to the manner prescribed by law.

The Council of People’s Deputies shall be elected to a term not exceeding four years from the date of the last election. This requirement shall not be infringed except in time of war, and only with the consent of the Congress of Soviets. New elections shall be held within sixty days of dissolution of the chamber. Council of People’s Deputies may determine, in such times when the CEC plenum is not in session, when its sessions shall be adjourned and resumed. It may be called to reconvene if the Speaker calls for convention. He shall be obliged to do so if one third of the members, the Central Committee or the Presidium of the Union so demand.

The Council of People’s Deputies shall elect its Speaker and all other officers, and adopt its rules of procedure.

Section 3

The Council of People's Deputies shall be a working body, devoted to the drafting, debate and recommendation of all legislation of all-Union importance


Section 4

The Council of the States shall be composed of one representatives from each member of the Union, elected according to all-Union electoral law by the Congress of Soviets of their member republic.

The Council of the States shall choose their President, and other officers.

Section 5

The Council of the States shall have the following enumerated powers:

  1. To propose amendments to legislation on the floor of the CEC, subject to approval by a simple majority of the CEC;
  2. To conduct official, independent inquiries and provide oversight over the All-Union and provincial governments.
  3. To oversee All-Union elections and to provide indictments for violation of election law;
  4. Confirmation of alterations of boundaries between Integral Union Republics;
  5. Confirmation of the formation of new Autonomous Republics within Integral Union Republics;

Section 6

The Central Committee of the Central Executive Council, shall consist of the executive committee chairman of the All-Union government, elected from the membership of the CEC. The Central Committee shall be a constituent organ of the CEC.

Upon election, chairmen of the executive committees shall be appointed by the Presidium and shall hold office with the confidence of the CEC.

On taking office, the People’s Secretaries and other executive officers shall take the following oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Basic Law of the Union of American Socialist Republics against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

If a constructive motion of no confidence receives the support of the majority of the CEC, then the current Central Committee must resign or be dismissed, and the new Central Committee appointed.

If at any time the Central Committee loses the confidence of the CEC, and no new Central Committee has been elected on the same ballot, then the CEC shall be dissolved, and new elections held.

Upon any dissolution of the CEC, the Presidium shall be required to convene the Congress of Soviets.

Section 7

The Central Executive Council shall be delegated the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying out the execution of the following, enumerated jurisdictions:

  1. Representation of the Union in international relations, conclusion and ratification of treaties with other states;
  2. Questions of war and peace;
  3. Control over the observance of the Basic Law of the UASR and ensuring conformity of the Basic Law of the members of the Union with the Basic Law of the UASR;
  4. Organization of the defense of the UASR and direction of Revolutionary Armed Forces;
  5. Foreign trade on the basis of state monopoly;
  6. Safeguarding the security of the state;
  7. Establishment of the national economic plans of the UASR;
  8. Approval of the single state budget of the UASR as well as of the taxes and revenues which go to the all-Union, Republican and local budgets;
  9. Administration of the banks, industrial and agricultural establishments and enterprises and trading enterprises of all-Union importance;
  10. Administration of transport and communications;
  11. Direction of the monetary and credit system;
  12. Organization of state insurance;
  13. Raising and granting of loans;
  14. Establishment of the basic principles for the use of land as well as for the use of natural deposits, forests and waters;
  15. Establishment of the basic principles in the spheres of education and public health;
  16. Organization of a uniform system of national economic statistics;
  17. Establishment of the principles of labor legislation;
  18. Legislation on the judicial system and judicial procedure; criminal and civil codes;
  19. Laws on citizenship of the Union; laws on the rights of foreigners;
  20. Issuing of All-Union acts of amnesty;
  21. The impeachment of the Presidium and all other public officers for official misconduct, high crimes or treason. All impeachments shall be tried by a special tribunal elected from the Congress of Soviets.

Section 8

The following powers are prohibited to the Central Executive Council:

  1. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be made or enforced.
  2. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any party to the Union.
  3. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one member over those of another.
  4. No money shall be appropriated from the public trust except by provisions of law. Regular statements and accounts of all receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published regularly.
  5. No title of nobility shall be granted by the Union, and no person shall accept any office or title of any kind from any foreign state except upon the consent of the CEC.
Section 9

Each chamber shall be the judge of the qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum; a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members.

Each chamber may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.

Each chamber shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and regularly publish the same.

Neither chamber, during the session of the Central Executive Council, shall adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other.

Section 10

Members of the CEC shall receive compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law but not exceeding the wage of an average skilled worker, to be paid out of the public trust of the Union. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective chambers, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either chamber.

Article V: The Presidium

Section 1

The executive power of the head of state shall be invested in a collegial body, the Presidium of the Congress of Soviets.

Section 2

The Presidium shall consist of a Secretary-General, and such deputies and secretaries as shall be determined by law, elected by the Congress of Soviets. The Presidium shall be accountable to the Congress of Soviets for all its actions.

The Secretary-General may not be a member of the Central Executive Council or an officer of any member of the Union.

The Presidium of the Congress of Soviets shall oversee the enforcement of the Basic Law of the Union, and the fair enforcement of all laws and decrees enacted by the state.

Section 3

Members of the Presidium shall be elected to terms of fixed length not to exceed five years, as defined by statute, by a quorum of the Congress of Soviets, and shall hold office during good behavior.

Section 4

The Presidium shall be delegated the following enumerated powers.

  1. The promulgation of decrees and laws enacted by either the Congress of Soviets or the Central Executive Council.
  2. Thedissolution of the Central ExecutiveCouncil and the setting of new elections upon the recommendation of the Central Committeer.
  3. The appointment and dismissal of the Central Committee according to the confidence expressed by the CEC.
  4. The power to suspend all acts ratified by the Central Executive Committee for a period of up to six months, except upon the concurrence of 2/3rds of both chambers of the CEC. The Presidium may during this period order such acts submitted to the Congress of Soviets for ratification.
  5. The establishment of orders and medals in the UASR, and in the awarding of such
  6. The right of pardon
  7. Ratification of all treaties, upon the advice and consent of the Central Executive Council.
  8. Representing the Union in foreign affairs, including the reception of envoys, and in appointing and dismissing all ambassadors and other plenipotentiaries upon the advice and consent of the Central Executive Council.
  9. The power, with the advice and consent of the Central Executive Council, to appoint judges of the All-Union Court system.

Section 5

Members of the Presidium shall hold the privilege of speaking on the floor of any chamber of the Central Executive Council.

Article VI: The Judiciary

Section 1

In order to maintain revolutionary legality within the territory of the UASR, the judicial power shall be vested in a system of tribunals, consisting of an All-Union Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, and all inferior tribunals established by law.

Section 2

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Basic Law, the laws of the Union and treaties made; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the Union shall be a party; to controversies between two or more parties to the Union; between citizens of different parties to the Union, and between a party to the union or citizens thereof, and foreign states and citizens.

Section 3

The All-Union Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal shall have the following responsibilities;

  1. To give the Supreme Revolutionary of the member Republics the authentic interpretations on questions of federal legislation;
  2. To examine, on the request of the Solicitor-General of the UASR, the decrees, decisions, and verdicts of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunals of the member Republics, with the view of discovering any infraction of the federal laws, or harming the interests of other Republics, and if such be discovered to bring them before the CEC of the UASR;
  3. To render decisions on the request of the CEC of the UASR as to the constitutionality of laws passed by the member Republics;
  4. To settle legal disputes between the member Republics;
  5. To hold original jurisdiction in all cases affecting ambassadors, public ministers and consuls, and those in which a party to the Union are involved
  6. To hold appellate jurisdiction in all other cases mentioned, both as to law and fact, with such exception and under such regulations as the Central Executive Council shall make.
Section 4

All members of the judiciary shall hold their office in good behavior, for terms established by law. A term shall not exceed ten years. In addition, the law may limit the lifetime tenure of any person to a specific judicial office, whether by fixing the number of terms permissible to hold that office, or the total time allowed to be spent in that office.

Article VII: Sovereignty

Section 1

The standard language of the All-Union government shall be American English. However, the promulgation of all laws, decrees and public documents by the All-Union government shall also be made available in German, Yiddish, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Russian. Union Republics with sizeable populations of non-English speakers shall be required to take similar measures with regards to their laws and decrees. Additionally, such republics shall be required to provide multilingual instruction in schools and universities, as well as provide reasonable accommodation in all public signage.

Section 2

The national flag shall be an engineer’s compass overlaying a hammer, set in a circle formed by a half-gear and a wreath of grain. This emblem shall be centered on a field twice as long as tall. The field shall be divided diagonally from the bottom left to the upper right; the upper-left half shall be red, and the bottom-right half shall be black.

The anthem of the UASR shall be The Internationale

The maxim of the Union shall be “Workers of all nations, unite!”

* There are some textual borrowings from the US Constitution as well as the 1924 Soviet Constitution, again for obvious in-universe reasons.
 
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